Respiratory Symptoms and Lung Function Indices of Grilled Meat (“Suya”) Sellers in Calabar, Nigeria

Background: The grilled meat (Suya) business exposes its employees to wood smoke and cooking oil fumes, which can cause impaired lung function. Objective: To compare the prevalence of respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms and lung function indices of suya meat sellers with those of control subjects in Calabar, Nigeria. Methods: Cluster sampling was used. The population consisted of 83 male grilled meat sellers and 83 male control subjects aged 19 – 40. A self-structured questionnaire was used to obtain their biodata and information on respiratory and non-respiratory symptoms. After that, forced vital capacity (FVC), forced expiratory volume in 1 second (FEV1), FEV1/FVC and peak expiratory flow rate (PEFR) were measured and used as indices of pulmonary function. Results: Age, anthropometric parameters (weight, height and chest circumference), pulse rate, and oxygen saturation were not significantly different between the two groups. FVC, FEV1, FEV1/FVC and PEFR were significantly lower (p = 0.042, <0.001, <0.001, and <0.001, respectively) in the test group compared with the control and correlated negatively (p<0.001, <0.001, 0.004 and <0.001, respectively) with the duration of work of the test subjects. About 74% and 60.24% of the test subjects reported chest pain and sneezing, against only 28.91% and 19.28% of the control subjects who reported having these respiratory symptoms. Many test subjects had headaches (84.34%) and waist pain (74.70%), while only a few control subjects had these symptoms (14.46% and 9.64%, respectively). Conclusion: Chronic exposure to wood smoke and cooking oil fumes from grilled meat (suya) preparation impairs lung function, which worsens with increasing duration of exposure.