Occupational Health Hazards Among Workers in a Printing Press, Cairo, Egypt

Abstract

Background: Working in printing industry is full of potential risks and hazards that can be mitigated through proper occupational health and safety practices or adoption of safety precautionary measures and use of personal protective equipments among workers. Objective: The present study aimed to compare the health status of the printing workers with that of administrative department employees, to identify the awareness of workers in the printing press about different exposures, to identify the types of health hazards that the workers are exposed to, to describe the conformance of the printing press environment regarding certain safety standards & to deliver a concise health education message to printing workers regarding workplace health hazards. Subjects & Methods: A comparative cross- sectional study was conducted among printing workers and employees of administrative department during the period from September 2017 to August 2018; (171) printing worker and (175) administrative department employees were interviewed using structured questionnaire adopted from Employee health questionnaire (2010) including socio-demographic characteristics, awareness of the workers regarding hazardous occupational exposures, symptoms of various system affection and frequency of PPEs use. Assessment of the work environment using checklist modified from that of occupational safety team, 2012. A health education message was given to the participating workers about the importance of the PPEs and some first aid measures through a brochure designed by the researcher. Results: The current study showed that (73.1%) of the printing workers stated that their job may expose them to hazardous factors & (50.9%) of them stated that this was because of hazardous chemicals exposure and (24.6%) due to noise. Regarding the symptoms reported by the workers; there was significant difference between both groups regarding eye irritation, inability to hear, tinnitus, backache, leg pain, chest symptoms & skin allergic & irritating symptoms. By examining the work environment; there was excessive noisy machines, frequent chemical use & lack of ergonomics. Conclusion & recommendation: The study concluded that protective measures among printing workers are inadequate. The study highlights the importance of effective safety education and training of the workers. Also periodic medical examination for hearing & chest affection. And periodic environmental monitoring