{"id":15589,"date":"2019-07-05T07:19:19","date_gmt":"2019-07-05T01:49:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/?p=15589"},"modified":"2019-07-05T07:19:19","modified_gmt":"2019-07-05T01:49:19","slug":"gujarat-agate-workers-use-potentially-low-preventive-practice-to-evade-deadly-silicosis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/gujarat-agate-workers-use-potentially-low-preventive-practice-to-evade-deadly-silicosis\/","title":{"rendered":"Gujarat agate workers use potentially low preventive practice to ‘evade’ deadly silicosis"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thursday, July 04, 2019<\/p>\n

By Rajiv Shah
\nA decade ago the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) may have come up with a Global Programme for the Elimination of Silicosis by 2030. However, a new research paper co-authored by Canada-based scholars in association with senior Gujarat activist Jagdish Patel of the People\u2019s Training and Research Centre (PTRC), Vadodara, suggests that the goal may not be easy to achieve, given the refusal of agate workers to believe in the efficacy of preventing the deadly disease.
\nBased on a survey of 1,120 respondents (agate workers 743, family members 277, and neighbours 100) in Khambhat, Central Gujarat, one of India\u2019s top hubs for drilling, cutting and polishing agate \u2013 a home-based industry which employs up to 50,000 workers are employed across the country \u2013 the semi\u2010precious stone is used to make jewellery and other decorative items, which are exported to the US, Hong Kong, Thailand, and European countries.
\nTitled \u201cReducing agate dust exposure in Khambhat, India: Protective practices, barriers, and opportunities\u201d, and published in the \u201cJournal of Occupational Health\u201d, the study says, while 44%, 35%, and 8% of agate workers, their family members, and neighbours, respectively, use some form of prevention practices, because the knowledge and risk perceptions are \u201cgenerally high\u201d among them, only 33.8% did not believe in the efficacy of measures they adopt.<\/p>\n

The study notes, \u201cThe majority did not believe or were unsure if agate dust inhalation could be prevented”, adding, not without reason, majority of individuals (61.4%) did not use any effective “prevention practices.\u201d The most commonly used preventive practices, says the study, are \u201ca dust mask, cloth, or scarf (roughly 60% of all individuals); wet handling (roughly 30% of all individuals); and enclosing or moving the process away from family members.\u201d
\nCalling the use of these prevention practices having \u201cpotentially low efficacy\u201d, the study says, \u201cThe majority of all individuals (69.6%) knew that very fine dust was the type most dangerous to health\u201d and that \u201cthe most commonly known health consequence of inhalation was difficulty in breathing or coughing.\u201d It adds, \u201cAbout 70% of individuals reported that they breathed enough dust to be harmful to their health, indicating generally high perception of risk.\u201d
\nResearchers from Canada who worked in association the PTRC activist for the study are from the Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Canada (Lindsey Falk, Paul Bozek, Lissa Ceolin, Mercedes Sobers, Donald C Cole), the Workplace Health Without Borders, Mississauga, Canada (Marianne Levitsky), and the Environmental Consulting Occupational Health, Mississauga (Om Malik).
\nThe study states, though \u201cmajority of individuals surveyed (87.8%) knew that agate dust was harmful to health\u201d, and they had learned about this from friends or family members (45.7%), health\u2010care workers (26.9%), or the PTRC (26.6%)\u201d, yet, less than 3% reported that their source of knowledge are employers. A home-based industry, over 40% of workers work for an agate industry entrepreneur.\"\"<\/p>\n

Bemoaning that \u201cventilation methods were only identified by approximately 5% of individuals\u201d, the study says, approximately 20.3% of workers reported prevention was too expensive, with only 23% of workers were willing to invest in an exhaust system for dust control. It adds, \u201cAmong them, 72.6% reported that they could invest Rs 5,000 or less\u201d, though \u201cmost workers reported being able to invest only after 6 months to a year\u201d, as \u201chalf of all workers reported owing debt.\u201d
\nFurther, says that study, \u201cOnly 30% of workers reported being willing to invest in new technologies. Among these individuals, approximately half were only willing to invest Rs 2,000. Interestingly having debt was not associated with the willingness to invest, suggesting that factors beyond cost could limit prevention practices currently or in the future.\u201d<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thursday, July 04, 2019 By Rajiv Shah A decade ago the World Health Organization (WHO) and the International Labour Organization (ILO) may have come up with a Global Programme for the Elimination of Silicosis by 2030. However, a new research paper co-authored by Canada-based scholars in association with senior Gujarat activist Jagdish Patel of the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[3,34],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/paUKPQ-43r","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15589"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15589"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15589\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15592,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15589\/revisions\/15592"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15589"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15589"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/allgujaratnews.in\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15589"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}