Air Quality in Welding Workshops and Its Health Implication on Welders in Port Harcourt
Journal Title: Archives of Organic and Inorganic Chemical Sciences - Year 2018, Vol 2, Issue 3
Abstract
The study was carried out in Port Harcourt to ascertain the air quality status of air in welding workshops and the health implication on welders in Port Harcourt. Five objectives alongside five research questions were set to guide in the achievement of the aim of the study. The experimental and the cross sectional research design were adopted in carrying out this study. A total of 217 welders were sampled for the study out of a total of 496 registered welders in Port Harcourt. The probability sampling technique was used in determining the sample population for the study. Descriptive statistics was used in the analysis of the data collected from the respondents. The findings of the study revealed that the air quality in the welders shop does not meet internationally accepted standards, the use of personal protective equipments is still not in its full state hence endangering lives of the welders and that large number of welders have suffered from catarrh, cough, Heart ache, waist pain skin rashes and breathing difficulty. The study recommended that health is wealth; therefore if welders must be in optimal health conditions, occupational based illness must be reduced. On the basis of this health checks for every worker must be done quarterly to verify the health status of every welder as to reduce their health risk. It also recommended that there is need for quarterly air quality assessment to be done to assess the air quality status of the welder's worksite and then identify generators/sources of pollutants, so as to reduce their occurrence. Health is associated with the well being of an individual, which measures the extent to which a person is able to perform work and still remain in an optimal productive state. According to World Health Organization [1], health is a state of complete physical, mental, and social well-being and not merely the absence of disease or infirmity. Health can be threatened by a lot of risk factors depending on the kind of occupation and the level of exposure. The International Standards Organization (2009) identified risk as the potential that a chosen action or activity will lead to a loss. It also identified that every human endeavors carries some level of risk but that risk levels differ due to the type of occupation that is been carried out. Health and wellbeing are affected by different factors, and ill health, disability, disease or death has been identified as risk factors [2]. Risk factors as they posits, are noted on individual basis, while in practice there operate holistically and not in isolation since there co exist and are seen to have an interaction with one another. With recent trends in globalization, development and innovations, the industrial sector plays an important role in the achievement of industrialization which is the driving force on any nation's economy. In the process of production, welding plays an important role of providing the technology of joining, especially in the still manufacturing industries where it accounts for value creation, the production and manufacturing of ships, building bridges as well as offshore and onshore foundations for oil drilling operations (Cheng et al. 2015). The construction industry as put forth by Pinto, Nunes and Ribeiro [3] is a high employment generating sectors in many countries of the world. They stated that in the construction industry there is diversity of activities which workers perform and that each of these jobs comes with its attending risk associated with it. Hence the workers who carry out these responsibilities are directly exposed to the associated risk posed by the job as well as those done by their co workers who are close by.
Authors and Affiliations
Chukwu Okeah GO, Igwe A, Mmom PC, Eze A
Keywords
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- EP ID EP602997
- DOI 10.32474/AOICS.2018.02.000138
- Views 73
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