Assessment of Occupational Hazards among Farmers in Kyar in Sei Kyi township, Karen state, Myanmar: a cross-sectional survey study

Abstract

Background: There are several of occupational hazards that are harmful to health and wellbeing are exposed to farm workers. The hazards are including dust, noise, thermal stress, pesticides and other chemicals risk factors. Due to the exposures, farm workers have a high risk of occupational injuries, sicknesses, and mortalities. Goal: The assessment of the hazards will help to obtain the effective information on farming safety and health hazards among farmers who live in Kyarin Seigyi Township. Specifically, to (i) explore the self-reported health issues among farmers (ii) determine the risk factors of negative health outcomes (iii) develop recommendation of safer practices for better health outcomes. Method: A cross-sectional study was conducted using a survey-questionnaire to collect data. Two hundred questionnaires were administered. Purposive sample method was used to select the respondents. Result: The results show common agricultural production to include rice, sesames and rubber. Results also revealed that that 94 (47.0%) out of 200 of the farmers interviewed reported of using pesticide on their crops. The finding found that there is an association between pesticide us characteristics like use nose make and washing hand with respiratory symptom (coughing) with p< 0.05. There are 62.7% of the age group from 33 years old and above reported to experience knee pain Conclusion: The analysis shows that didn’t use nose mask while using pesticide revealed slightly to suffer with respiratory symptom (coughing). The result displayed that age also significantly associated with knee pain a symptom of musculoskeletal disorder. Finally, the study conclude that not only occupational hazards are the risk for health outcomes, but also the other risk factors such as social demographic characteristics can associated with the negative health outcomes of farmers.