Occupational health status of workers in Shahroud Cement Factory

The cement industry is one of the most important industries involved in development of countries and also of the most polluting industry work place with harmful agents’ preposition. The purpose of this study was to investigate the workers’ health status in a cement company based on their available medical records. This cross-sectional study is conducted in 2011. In the study, we examined data obtained from 331 workers’ health records (all Shahroud cement company personnel) including their pre-employment, periodical examination and case-specific medical records. Chi-square and independent t-test was used to analyze the data using SPSS version 15. The significance level in all tests was 0.05. Average (Standard Deviation) of age and work history for workers were 40 ±7.5 and12.1 ± 5.5 respectively. Hearing loss (33.5%), cardiovascular disease (18.4%) and musculoskeletal disorders (13.9%) were the most prevalent diseases. statistically significant association was found between cardiovascular diseases (p=0.03) and hearing loss (p=0.002) with job category. Work history was associated with cardiovascular disease (p=0.02), musculoskeletal disorder (p=0.03), renal disease (p=0.003), gastrointestinal disease (p=0.04) and hearing loss (p=0.002). Significant associations were found between age and cardiovascular disease (p=0.007), gastrointestinal disease (p=0.007), and hearing loss (p<0.0001). Working in cement industry may cause hearing loss, high risk of renal diseases and diabetes compared to the normal people. The unsuitable conditions and the harmful work environment are possible causes to workers’ health problems.