Occupational hazards and health problems among traffic personnel of Mangaluru city

INTRODUCTION

Environmental air pollution is one of the global problems and is a common problem for both developing as well as developed countries, which attracts the attention of human beings for their severe long-term consequence.^1,2 The occupational environment constitutes an important part of man's total environment. So to a large extent, their health is mostly affected by work surroundings. Though numerous types of environment exist, it is the physical environment, which plays an important bearing on health_.³

Air quality crisis in cities of India is mainly due to emission from the vehicles. Increase in use of motor vehicles leading to the subsequent rise in the levels of air pollution. This has, especially affected the traffic personnel who have to spend long duty hours at busy traffic signals.⁴ The personnel has to undergo physical strain in an environment polluted with fumes, the exhaust of vehicles, use of blowing horns, blow off dust in the air by the speeding vehicles, etc..⁵ Traffic personnel are exposed to higher health risk, to ensure steady traffic among hundreds of noisy and polluting vehicles throughout their duty period. The duration of exposure increases the chance of health hazard and becomes more severe_.⁶ Environmental pollution escalates occupational hazards in this group. In urban areas, industrial or vehicular pollution is predominant and significantly contributes to air quality problems.

METHODS

This study is a cross-sectional study. The study was conducted in the four traffic police stations in Mangaluru city, Karnataka, India. The study period for this study was from January - April 2019. The study population comprised of all operational traffic personnel of Mangaluru city, Karnataka. In this study the traffic personnel willing to participate with a written consent are included. The traffic personnel with less than one-year work experience and traffic personnel posted in police station/non-traffic duty were excluded from the study. Sample size was taken as 80% of total 297 traffic personnel.

Study instrument

In this study, self-administered (semi-structured) questionnaires were used to collect the information. The questionnaire includes socio-demographic details, American Thoracic Society-Division of Lung (ATS-DLD) respiratory morbidity assessment, eye problems and safety measures, noise pollution and its related health problem and protective measures. Descriptive data were analyzed using frequency, percentage, mean, median and standard deviation (S.D). For the association between variables, appropriate bivariate was done. For the association between variables, chi-square was used p value less than 0.05 was considered as statistically significant.

RESULTS

In this study the minimum age was 20 years, and the maximum age was 60 years with a mean of 33.42±8.98 years. In this study, most (86.2%) of the respondents were males. The work experience of the respondents ranged between 1 to 34 years with mean 9.20±7.944 years. Other demographic details are described in (Table 1). In the study, the prevalence of respiratory symptoms was 51.2%, eye symptoms (61.6%) and auditory symptoms (47.5%). The majority (49.6%) of the respondents had cough while on outdoor traffic duty or after that. Among them, the majority (68.1%) had frequent cough while 31.9% of the respondents reported chronic cough. From the total respondents of 240, 45% of the respondents reported they bring up phlegm. Of these 108 respondents, 63% and 37% reported frequent phlegm and chronic phlegm respectively (for details go to Table 2 and Table 3). In the study, 34.2% of the respondents reported that people often indicate they talk loudly. Similarly, 28.8% of the respondents reported they would ask others to talk loudly (Table 4). The prevalence of respiratory morbidity and duration of use of protective measures were compared. An association with statistical significance was found (p=0.027) between the prevalence of respiratory morbidity and duration of use of protective measures against air pollution. Similarly, an association with statistical significance (p=0.05) was found between the duration of exposure to air pollution and eye symptoms. Significant association (p=0.028) was found between the duration of exposure to noise with the prevalence of auditory symptoms (Table 5).

* Multiple response.

* Multiple response.

* p≤0.05, **p<0.001.

DISCUSSION

The present study was conducted to determine the prevalence of occupational hazards and related health problems, using a self-administered questionnaire, among traffic personnel of Mangaluru city, Karnataka, India. In the present study, respondents belonged to the age group of 20 to 60 years with the mean age of 33.42±8.98 years. A study conducted in Kolkata by Ganthi et al showed that the mean age of traffic personnel was 39.2±7.8 years.⁷ This variation in the mean age of the respondents in both the groups may be due to the recruitment of senior personnel in metro cities when compared to non-metro cities.

In this study, the prevalence of respiratory morbidity was found to be 51.2%. In a study conducted by Saravana Ganthi et al., in 2012, to assess the exposure to vehicular pollution and its impact on traffic policemen, the prevalence of respiratory symptoms was found to be 57.69%.⁷ Similarly, a study conducted by Sharat et al., on respiratory effects of air pollutants among traffic policemen in Patiala showed the prevalence of respiratory symptoms for frequent coughing as 68% and shortness of breath as 22%.⁹ This shows the prevalence of respiratory morbidity is a common phenomenon among traffic police personnel, across various geographic locations in India, owing to similar occupational characteristics and prolonged exposure to vehicular air pollution.

In the present study, the prevalence of eye symptoms was 61.7%. A study conducted by Prajapati et al, in Ahmedabad City, stated the prevalence of eye problems as 44.81%.¹⁰ In the present study, prevalence of eye symptoms was higher when compared to the Ahmedabad contemporaries. Cleanliness of streets and density of traffic are also important factors, apart from long term exposure to vehicular air pollution.

In the present study, the prevalence of ear problems was found to be 47.5%. In addition, a study conducted by Tripathi et al on hearing quality of traffic policemen in Ahmedabad, in 2006, showed that 11.6% complained of regular tinnitus and 62.8% reported work-related tinnitus.⁸ The reported ear problems in the present study is higher in comparison to the study conducted by Tripathi et al.⁸ The possible reason could be the use of shrill horns and inadvertent honking behavior among motorists in Mangaluru. Lack of awareness about noise pollution and its effect on health, lack of information about protective measures may be the cause of low prevalence of auditory protective measures among the traffic personnel. However, the reasons for non-usage of protective measures were found similar in both studies. These reasons are mostly attitude-driven than knowledge factors.

CONCLUSION

The study found that the prevalence of respiratory morbidity, eye symptoms, and ear problems were 51.2%, 61.6%, and 47.5% respectively. The observed result is due to the prolonged exposure to vehicular pollution and not using personal protective measures. Health problems can become the barriers for performing their duties efficiently.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors thank the Deputy Commissioner of Police of the Mangaluru for giving permission to carry out the study and to the traffic personnel for giving their consent to participate in the study.

Funding: No funding sources

Conflict of interest: None declared

Ethical approval: The study was approved by the Institutional Ethics Committee of K.S. Hegde Medical Academy (KSHEMA), Nitte (Deemed to be University)

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