Assessment of personal protective equipment use and occupational exposures in small industries in Jeddah: Health implications for workers

Abstract

Small-scale industries account for a large proportion of jobs and play a vital role in most countries’ economic growth and prosperity. Due to the very low use of personal protective equipment (PPEs), employees are exposed to numerous physical, chemical, and accidental hazards in small-scale industries. PPEs are very effective in minimizing occupational injuries, accidents, and other hazards which otherwise result in substantial manpower and financial losses. The study objective was to assess the availability and use of PPEs as well as self-reported occupational exposures among workers in surveyed small industries in Jeddah. The study involved 102 workers from 28 small-scale industries (vehicle repair, welding, and paint). A survey was conducted to gather data of socio-demographic characteristics, self-reported occupational exposures, and frequency of PPEs used by workers. The occupational exposures (never exposed, sometimes exposed and always exposed) were reported in percentages including; noise exposure (19.6, 73.5 and 6.9%); dust/smoke exposure (9.8, 69.6 and 20.6%); vapors/fumes exposure (11.8, 60.8 and 27.5%); and direct sunlight (43.1, 56.9 and 0%), respectively. The reported use of different PPEs in descending order was; knee joints mats (50%), welding shields (50%), safety glasses (33.3%), gloves (27.5%), face masks (26.5%), safety shoes (10.8%) and earplugs/ muffs (8.8%). On the basis of this study findings, hand hygiene and general OSH awareness like interventions can be developed which will help in minimizing workplace exposures among small-scale industry workers.

Key ingredients and recycling strategy of personal protective equipment (PPE): Towards sustainable solution for the COVID-19 like pandemics

“…If risks or the possibilities of risks are detected, employers must make sure that appropriate PPEs are selected and provided to the employers to protect from these risks. Before carrying out the work needing PPE usage, workers must understand while PPE is required, what kind is essential, how this is to be used, its boundaries, and its decent care, preservation, valuable time, and end [50] , [51] , [52] . Additionally, Karim et al [53] proposed a sustainable personal protective cloth for healthcare purposes.…”

The pooled effect of Factors Contributing to Occupational Injury among Workers in the Construction, Manufacturing, and Mining Industries in Africa: A systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.

“…Similarly, performing workplace safety inspections, reducing weekly working hours, using personal protective equipment, employment working conditions (being temporary employment workers), service year, being male, and job category were all found to be independent predictors of occupational injuries in multiple studies [33][34][35][36][37][38][39][40][41][42]. Besides, most studies found an association between weekly working hours, health and safety instruction, workplace safety supervision, and occupational injuries and illness.…”

Health and Safety for Infrastructure Projects: PPE Adaptation and Barriers

“…which adds more complication to the project implementation. In the construction industry, all the workers and technical engineers need to nearly work on-site either to perform activities or to monitor the work is done correctly [6]. The construction industry is far different from other industries which typically requires on-site involvement of all the project members.…”