MORBIDITY PATTERN AMONG BOATMEN IN VARANASI, INDIA

10^th World Congress on HEALTHCARE & TECHNOLOGIES

July 17-18, 2017 | Lisbon, Portugal

Sushrima Gan

International Institute for Population Sciences (IIPS), India

Posters & Accepted Abstracts: J Health Med Informat

Abstract :

Water tourism is the second most important industry in Varanasi, the spiritual capital of India. Effort was made to study the morbidity pattern of boatmen to find what type of illness they suffered the most and whether there was any association between type of boat and morbidity. A Cross-sectional retrospective study was carried out after pilot survey. Data was collected during 2 months period by Convenience and Purposive sampling. All Descriptive statistics were calculated. Chi-square test is used to assess association between type of boat-morbidity and area of work-morbidity. 164 boatmen was interviewed(41.5% between age 21-30),74.4% boats hand-driven.36.6% faced illness due to profession and 56.1% suffered from common cold and flu. 41.5% suffered during summer. Statistically significant association between type of boat and whether a boatman is suffering due to profession, chisquare 0.016<0.05. Boatmen who had hand driven boats, found to be fit -they considered this as a healthy exercise, those with motor driven boats suffered more due to profession. (60%). Motor boats emitted smoke and therefore the boatmen developed bronchial complications. They also complained that due to pollution, accumulation of plastic down the river, dirt gets stuck in the motor and they have to get down in the water to fix the problem, remain wet in the boat until their destination is reached. The most common illness is common cold. Statistically significant association between type of boat and morbidity among boatmen was found.