Assessment of occupational Health safety and vulnerability measures in Pharmaceutical industries of Islamabad

Abstract

Background: The concept of occupational Health and Safety in developing countries is limited diseases and accidents at work are one of the most appalling tragedies of the modern industrial age therefore the incidence of occupational diseases and injuries is high. No sufficient data about OHS are available in Pakistan because the majority of accidents are not reported to the Labour Department. Pakistan also has poor occupational safety and health legislation and infrastructure. Objectives: The aim of this study is to determine the association between occupational health safety and vulnerability measures with sociodemographic features of pharmaceutical workers. Methodology: The cross-sectional study was conducted on twelve pharmaceutical industries. The total sample by using Previous prevalence 59.74% and by adding 5% non-responsive was 388.The Data was collected through a semi structured questionnaire OHS vulnerability measures. All level of workers from most senior to most junior was included and those who had injuries outside the industry were excluded. The data collected was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics techniques. Chi-square test was used to investigate the association between dependent and independent variables. Results: Results indicated that sociodemographic variables had no significant association between occupational health safety and vulnerability measures among workers of the pharmaceutical industries. The highest percentage for occupational safety was found 89(42.6%) and risk of Occupational Hazards was found 104(58.1%) while the overall association between occupational health safety and vulnerability of hazard was found statistically non-significant (X2 =0.019, df=1, p=0.892). Conclusion: The study concluded that occupational vulnerability is high in pharmaceutical workers because of less occupational safety, so it is required that administration and management should focus on creating awareness of occupational health and safety, efforts should be made to create suitable environment where factory workers can practice healthy and good occupational safety and can reduce occupational injuries and accidents. 4 Keywords: occupational safety, vulnerability of occupational hazards, occupational risk, Knowledge of occupational safety, Participation in occupational safety.