Occupational Musculoskeletal and Respiratory Illness among Brick Kiln Industry Workers in Bangladesh

Occupational risk factors are one of the major causes of health-related problems of brickfield workers. The purpose of this study was to assess the occupational health illness of the brickfield workers. This cross-sectional study was conducted in the unorganized brick kilns in the south-central part of Bangladesh. Multi-stage probability sampling technique was applied to select brick kilns. A total of 220 workers from 10 brick kilns with one year of working experience were selected. A Standardized Nordic questionnaires and semi-structured respiratory questionnaire was applied for the collection of quantitative information. The mean age of the workers was 39.01 years and most of them were male. The average working experience was 7 years and about 40% of them worked more than 8 hours in a day without any break of the week. A total of 140 subject (79.5%) had musculskeletal pain and 140 subject (63.6%) suffered from respiratory problems. Multivarite logistic regression model showed that type of working was the only independent predictor of both musculuskeletal and respiraory problems. The findings of this study revealed a high prevalence of musculuskeletal and respiraory problems in brick kiln workers. Brick carring was the most hazardous task among workers at brick kiln industeries