Musculoskeletal disorders and related health hazards in women working in chikankari industry
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Date
2016-05
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G.B. Pant University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar - 263145 (Uttarakhand)
Abstract
Lucknow is known around the world over for its many fine handicrafts. Some of the most popular names in the list are chikankari, hand-block, textile printing, zari, zardozi, and many others that are practiced by various artisans of Lucknow. Chikankari is considered to be the most popular amongst these and is recognized worldwide. It is a fine art of embroidery made with untwisted yarn with the help of the needle on a fine cloth. Most back pain is caused by bad posture while sitting, even though bad posture may not cause any discomfort, continual poor posture will in the long term cause back pain. As the ladies have to sit in one posture and that to they have to bend forward in order to do their work. Therefore, present investigation aimed to study the demographic profile and medical history of women workers, to study the work schedule and working environment, to measure the physiological cost of work in terms of – musculoskeletal disorder, visual/ postural/grip strength stress, to study work related hazards of the workers and to develop intervention programme and disseminate in selected centres to educate workers on healthy work environment. Simple random sampling technique was used to select Chikankari workers. From the total 146 Chikankari centers, two centers namely Lucknowi Chikan Centre Chowk and S.J. Chikan Vatika Centre Cantt road were selected. A list of workers was prepared from two centers and from total 150 and 170 Chikankari workers respectively, 60 from each centre were randomly selected for descriptive data, while 10% of the workers were selected for experimental group (12workers). It was found from the investigation that Majority 53.30 percent unit I and 51.70 percent unit II based workers performed their work in sitting on floor in cross legged position. Majority 85.83 percent workers reported working hour to be 7-8 hours per day. About 85 percent workers had reported body ache as the main common illness faced by them. Whereas continuous health problem reported by unit II i.e. 30 percent reported skin allergies as health problem. Unit I and Unit II workers reported less space (86.6 per cent) as major work environmental problems. Unit I and Unit II workers reported low wage was given by traders as major economic problems (65 per cent). As per REBA postural analysis, most of the chikankari workers were in the category of AL2 which interprets medium risk level and change was required soon. Back pain was the major musculoskeletal pain/discomfort reported by all units of workers. Muscular grip strength was condensed in performing only embroidery activity. Maximum decline in hand grip strength in both 90o and 180o was in case of unit II workers. Thus, types of Personal protective equipment (hand gloves, finger cots or protectors) were suggested to these workers to reduce health hazards.