Environmental Pollution, Health Hazards and Quality of Life of Workers in Tobacco Industries: A Case Study

Abstract

The present study was an attempt to investigate the effect of Environmental Pollution on Health Hazards and Quality of Life of Workers in Tobacco Industries, The study was conducted on a sample of 540 workers-340 from polluted and 200 from non-polluted industries, Information was collected by using the following measuring instruments: The inventory for measuring Quality of Working Life (Sinha and Sayeed, 1980), The Inventory of Subjective Health (Dirken, 1967), General Health Questionnaire-12 (Goldberg, 1972) and The Interview Schedules-personal and health related questionnaire (Khaleque et aL, 1988), The objectives of the study were: a) To study the effect of environmental pollution on health and quality of life of the workers in tobacco industries, b) To study the effect of health hazards on quality of life of workers in Tobacco industries & c) To study the gender effect on worker's health and quality of life in Tobacco industries, It was hypothesized that; 1) Significant difference would be found between the workers of the polluted and non-polluted industries in terms of their quality of working life, subjective health and mental health; 2) Workers' age will have significant effect on quality of working life, subjective health and mental health of the workers of polluted and non-polluted industries; 3) Workers' sex will have significant effect on quality of working life, subjective health and mental health of the workers of polluted and non-polluted industries; 4) Workers' marital status will have significant effect on quality of working life, subjective health and mental health of the workers of polluted and non-polluted industries; 5) Workers' job experience will have significant effect on quality of working life, subjective health and mental health of the workers of polluted and non-polluted industries; 6) Significant relationship would be found among the scores on quality of working life, subjective health and mental health of the workers of both polluted and non-polluted industries. Major findings showed that there were significant differences between the workers of the polluted and non-polluted industries in terms of quality of working life, subjective health and mental health. Workers age, Sex, marital status and job experience have significant effect on their subjective health, mental health and quality of working life respectively. The study reveals the following facts: Both the male and female workers of the non-polluted industries have been enjoying better quality of life, subjective health and mental health than the workers of polluted industries. The male workers of the polluted industries have better quality of working life, subjective health and mental health. The workers of all ages in non-polluted industries have been enjoying better quality of working life; have relatively better subjective health and mental health conditions than those of the polluted industries. The older age group of workers (i.e. 30 years and above) perceived good quality of working life and subjective health. The younger workers of below 20 years of age have been enjoying better mental health. The unmarried workers have been enjoying better mental health. The workers having experience less than 10 years have been enjoying better quality of working life, have good subjective health and mental health. The result also showed that there were significant positive correlations between the scores on different scales- OWL, ISH and GHQ- for the workers of both the industries. The findings of the study were almost in line with the hypothesis framed. Appropriate preventive measures have been recommended to reduce workplace pollution for improving quality of life and health condition of the workers.