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Road construction activities are hazardous. Workers are exposed to hazards with high probability of illness, injury, disability or death. The objective was to determine road workers' perceptions of occupational hazards, ailments experienced and health seeking behaviour. This was an institution-based descriptive cross-sectional study using open-ended questions. A total of 353 road workers from Ashanti, Ahafo and Western North regions reported work-related hazards and ranked the top-3. Workers in each craft/stratum who gave consent were included in the study and interviewed. They also reported work-related ailments and health-seeking behaviour. The workers were primarily young (mean age 32.4 years) and male (97.7%). Most (70.2%) workers were contract/casual staff. 38 hazards were reported, with the top five being dust (91.5% of workers reported this), extreme temperatures (72.0%), noise (40.5%), fumes (21.8%) and vehicles/trucks (21.1%). Most (86.8%) workers reported a work-related ailment, with the most common being cough (41.1%) and headache (18.9%). Most (87.8%) workers with ailments sought treatment of any kind. Road construction workers in these regions of Ghana have good appreciation of hazards at work and the dangers they pose. Works supervisors should encourage workers on PPE use against dust, noise, fumes and good housekeeping. Regular worker-training on hazards is recommended.

Introduction Mortuary data are incomplete in many developing countries. Small investments could lead to substantial improvements. Objective To evaluate recent trends in injury reporting systems. To identify ways to strengthen the reporting systems and make them more useful for injury control. Methods We evaluated changes in data quality on fatally injured persons at KATH over a 12-year period. Results During 1994-95, cases in KATH's mortuary logbooks had missing information on cause of death, and only 70 injury deaths/year were reported. This was felt to be a gross underestimate of injury among Kumasi's 1 000 000 people. A pilot program hired part-time nurses to improve recording of injury deaths. During 1996-1999, 633 deaths/year were recorded, more accurately refl ecting injury's toll in Kumasi. To assess the sustainability of this improvement after funding expired, we re-assessed mortuary injury data quality in 2006. Reporting remained high, with 865 fatally injured cases recorded. However, only 80% of these cases were found in mortuary logbooks. An additional 20% were found in supplemental sources in the hospital, principally the ICU. Data quality had diminished slightly. Conclusion In many developing countries, important information is not recorded. Low-cost improvements could lead to improved reporting and data quality. This study has shown that such improvements are sustainable after the initial investments. Minor problems such as insuffi cient collation of data