Occupation related health problems among women cashew industry workers in Kollam district, Kerala: a cross sectional study

Background: Majority of the workers in cashew industry are women who belong to economically disadvantaged strata of the society. Work related musculoskeletal disorder is one of the major occupational health problems in industrialized countries. The objective of study was to find out the occupation related health problems among women workers of cashew industries in Kollam district, Kerala. Methods: This is a cross sectional community-based study conducted among 350 women cashew workers of Kollam district of age above 45 years using quantitative method. Simple random sampling method was used to collect the sample. The data was collected from all the respondents using pretested interview schedule in local language Malayalam. Details of basic socio demographics, occupation related health problems were collected. Results: Around 72% of the workers are doing cashew shelling,19% of the workers are in grading section and the remaining 9% of them are doing peeling job. Majority of the women (73%) performed their job by sitting on the floor. Around 342 (97.7%) workers have reported at least one health problems in the last one year. Musculoskeletal disorders (MSDs) (89.7%) were the predominant work-related health problem of the women cashew workers. Among MSDs, the most affected region is lower back (37.6%) and the least affected one is elbow (4.5%). Conclusions: There is an urgent need to introduce participatory ergonomic interventions among the women workers with more comfortable working positions and healthy work stations.