Health Status and Health Risk of Working Conditions among the Agricultural Informal Workers in Phitsanulok Province

Abstract

The objectives of this study were 1) to study health status, illness and injuries 2) to study work condition that lead to health risk in working among the agricultural informal workers in Phitsanulok province. The health risk assessment questionnaire for informal workers was used in this study. Stratifed random sampling was employed to obtain the samples of 325 agricultural informal workers from Phitsanulok province. The data were analyzed by descriptive statistics.

The results show that agricultural informal workers are underlying disease around 35.4% and had non-work accidents around 45.5%. The proportion of work accidents in the previous year at 27.30% and the frequency of work accidents were 1-2 times per month. The major causes of work accidents were indiscretion and use of sharp equipments. For work condition, over 50% of subjects used electrical equipments. A major physical hazard affecting health risk was to expose to high temperature during working period. The subjects used chemical substances around 48.21%. Moreover, the dust exposure was the major chemical hazard during working at 64.0%. The subjects were risky to expose to biological hazards around 24.31%. The majority of ergonomics and psychological hazards were long time standing during working, repetitive force and high stress at 21.8%.