A Cross-Sectional study on industrial health hazards among garment factories workers of Tamil Nadu

Garment workers constitute a lion share of the total labour force in Tamil Nadu, India, which bring most of the country's foreign currency. The competitiveness of the garment industry in the world market is seriously affected by the ill health of the workers, since ill health decreases the labour productivity to a great extent. Present study aims to find out the occupational health hazards among the workers, working in different garment factories in Coimbatore textile belt of Tamil Nadu. A Total of 145 workers were interviewed by an interviewer using a structured questionnaire. Result of the study highlight that majority were found in the age group of 16 to 30 years. Most of the respondents were female. 45.52% were educated institutionally. 52.4% respondents were machine operator, but maximum (75%) were unskilled and 72% had length of job between 2 to 7 years. 91% respondents normally worked for 8 to 9 hours. 85.5% did 2 to 3 hours overtime. In the last one year 64.8% had no accident but minor cut, burn or injury was faced by 28.3%. Most of the (44%) respondents did not complain about physical environmental pollution but 33.8% complained of noise pollution. Majority (84.8%) told that health professional were constantly present in their factory and they were satisfied with their health facilities. Maximum (51%) respondents suffered from headache or shoulder pain. Majority did not mention any permanent illness. In this study the prevalence of occupational health hazards was 88.28%. A significant relationship was found between noise pollution and headache. More emphasis should be given to the workers to improve their health condition and working environment so that they can increase their efficiency which can ultimately increase the production and add GDP to the country.