Health Status And Treatment Seeking Behavior Among Power Loom Workers in An Urban Slum of Meerut City In U.P.

Abstract

Background: Powerloom sector is one of the important but unorganized parts of textile industry of India and mainly run by private establishments. The power loom workers hardly ever benefit from occupational health-and-safety provisions. As a result power loom workers suffer many serious medical illnesses. It is important to note that, it is the only sector of textile industry which is running without much research or innovation. Objectives: To study the health status & treatment seeking behavior among power loom workers. Methodology: It was a community based cross sectional study conducted by interviewing 150 male power loom workers of small scale industries of urban slum Meerut from January 2011- June 2011. Results: Out of total 150 respondents, 92% were Muslims and 8% were Hindus. 78% workers were less than 45 years of age, 86% were married and 72% were illiterate and 82% belonged to lower socioeconomic class. 78% workers gave history of smoking. Among morbidities, majority of workers were suffering from respiratory problems (52%) followed by musculo-skeletal problems (22%), generalized weakness (18%), injuries (14%), mental & GIT disorders (12% each), skin disorders (10%) and noise induced hearing loss (8%). 52% workers preferred allopathic treatment for their illness, though 40% preferred Indigenous system of medicine, out of which 18% preferred Ayurvedic, 14% Homeopathic, 6% Naturopathy and 2% Unani medicine for their illness. 38% of workers had opinion that allopathic medicines are costly and 26% of workers had opinion that allopathic medicine has side effects and 22% of workers had opinion that Indigenous system of medicines are cheap and easily available and 28% of workers had opinion that there is no side effects with the Indigenous system of medicine.