An Assessment of the Physiological Health and Occupational Health Hazards among Pottery Workers

Abstract

In the different states of India and other Asian nations, potters create pots and are among the most selected job in the unorganized sector. Many people work in the production of pottery, which is still primarily done manually. Most of the pottery activities in India are being done by manual efforts and the tasks are physically and physiologically demanding. The primary goal of this research was to assess the physiological health and occupational health issues of potters from an ergonomic standpoint. Eighty potters were chosen at random from Paschim Medinipur district of West Bengal for this study. The modified Kuppuswami Scale was used to assess the Socio-economic Status. Pottery workers' physiological health was assessed using the WHO-recommended methods for determine body mass index and measuring blood pressure. It was found that all the pottery workers were from lower socioeconomic classes. The results revealed that the 40% of male and 55% of female workers were within normal range but 60% of male and 40% of female workers were overweight and 5% of females were obese. The systolic and diastolic blood pressure was significantly (p<0.001) higher in female workers than that of the male. According to the blood pressure cut-off values, it was found that the most of the subjects were within the normotensive range (90% and 95% of males and females respectively). However, a little percentage of the female subjects had hypotension (5%), although the prevalence of male hypertension was very low (10%). It was noted that the occurrence of MSD was remarkably high (≥60% of the respondents) in neck, shoulder, lower back, hip and knee. In discomfort rating of male and female pottery workers there was a significant difference (p<0.05; p<0.001) in the occurrence of discomfort in different body segments (upper arm-left, lower arm-both, buttock, shoulder, and feet-left). The study concludes that the pottery workers had more or less good general health but they suffer from occupational health problems.