25126

ADVERSE DERMATOLOGIC AND RESPIRATORY HEALTH PROBLEMS AMONG STREET SWEEPER’S WORKERS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

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Last updated: 01 Jan 2025

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Abstract

Introduction: Street Sweeping plays an important role in maintaining the health and hygiene in cities. This job exposes street sweepers to a variety of risk factors that leads to multiple health hazards such as: respiratory system problems, cardiovascular degeneration, musculoskeletal disorders, infections, skin and gastrointestinal problems. Aim of work: To study the prevalence of some dermatological and respiratory manifestations among street sweepers and its relevance with occupational exposure. Materials and methods: The present study is a comparative cross-sectional study, conducted at Benha city, Qualubya Governorate, Egypt. Data was collected over a period of 4 months. Cluster random sampling was used to choose the study groups as we choose 5 quarters out from 16 quarters in Benha city by simple random sample. The total number of participant enrolled in this study was 200 individuals (126 street sweepers as a study group and 74 administrative staff as a control), all were non-smokers, matched for duration of work and age. Results: Significant higher percentage of skin disorders was detected among street sweepers in comparison to administrative staff: hair loss (19 % vs. 6.8%), scabies (15.1% vs. 4%), frunculosis (18.3% vs. 4.1%), contact dermatitis (17.5% vs. 2.7%), infected wound (11 % vs. 1.4 %), and varicosities (25.4% vs. 6.8%) (p< 0.01). Pulmonary function tests of street sweepers showed significant decline of (FEV1, FVC and FEV1/FVC ratio) in comparison to the control group. Our study revealed strong association between working for 10 years or more and development of chronic cough, phlegm (p value < 0.01), wheezes and feeling of shortness of breath (p value < 0.05). More than fifty percent of street sweepers were not wearing personal protective clothes at all. Conclusion: Exposure of sweeper's workers to many health hazards and poor use of protective equipments are associated with skin and respiratory diseases.

DOI

10.21608/ejom.2019.25126

Keywords

Street sweeper’s workers, Skin diseases, Respiratory diseases, Protective equipments and Benha city

Authors

First Name

Hassan

Last Name

O

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Affiliation

Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Benha University, Benha, Egypt.

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Abed

Last Name

H

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Benha University, Benha, Egypt.

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Araby

Last Name

E

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Department of Community Medicine, Faculty of Medicine, Benha University, Benha, Egypt.

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City

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Orcid

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First Name

Fayed

Last Name

N

MiddleName

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Affiliation

Department of Dermatology and Andrology, Faculty of Medicine, Benha University, Benha, Egypt.

Email

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City

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Orcid

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Volume

43

Article Issue

1

Related Issue

4549

Issue Date

2019-01-01

Receive Date

2019-01-17

Publish Date

2019-01-01

Page Start

111

Page End

127

Print ISSN

1110-1881

Online ISSN

2357-058X

Link

https://ejom.journals.ekb.eg/article_25126.html

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https://ejom.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=25126

Order

7

Type

Original Article

Type Code

577

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

Egyptian Journal of Occupational Medicine

Publication Link

https://ejom.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

ADVERSE DERMATOLOGIC AND RESPIRATORY HEALTH PROBLEMS AMONG STREET SWEEPER’S WORKERS: A COMPARATIVE STUDY

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Article

Created At

22 Jan 2023