Knowledge, attitude and perception of the population about cement dust health effects of the Mashyuza cement factory

Abstract

Introduction: Cement industry is one of the largest manufacturing industries and its workers are exposed to dust at various manufacturing and production processes. Cement dust causes lung function impairments chronic obstructive lung disease, restrictive lung disease, pneumoconiosis and carcinoma of the lungs, stomach and colon. Like different population worldwide, many of them even exposed to cement dust have different perceptions and attitudes on cement dust. Method: The present research is a cross sectional descriptive research on the knowledge, attitude and perception of population about cement dust health effects of the Mashyuza cement factory (CIMERWA). The study was conducted on 607 population. The recruitment of the population to participate to survey has been done among the population of 3 sectors surrounding Mashyuza cement factory. Data collection was done through administration of questionnaire. Data entry was done with Microsoft excel 2010. After cleaning, data were exported into SPSS 16.0 for analysis. Chi-square test was used to test the statistical significance of the association. Results: All study participants know the existence of CIMERWA, 98.5% are exposed to cement dust from CIMERWA 75.3% , 72.8% and 88.7% affirm that cement dust reaches respectively their water, food and respiratory air; 92.1% knows that cement dust has effect on person life; 74.9% of study population listed pneumopathy as one side effect from cement dust; 92.7% did not know how can be prevented side effects from cement dust; move out of exposed zone as mode of prevention was cited by 93.5% of study population who knows how can be prevented side effects from cement dust. There were significant association of measures taken for preventing food and sex of participants, sector of origin, marital status and religion Conclusion: Cement dust was shown as public health problem in this study as most of participants know that it has effect on their life. What is positive point is that most of them knows how to prevent side effects from cement dust unfortunately measures or strategies taken by health care services and CIMERWA authorities on this problem are still few.