Hazards in the workplace can be a significant addition to the health burdens that urban life imposes. These can include contact with a wide range of toxic substances and communicable diseases, unsafe machinery, unhealthful noise levels, inadequate lighting or ventilation, and extremes of heat or cold. These hazards are often made worse by a lack of protective clothing or equipment[1].

In many developing countries, the problem of occupational hazards is compounded by the lack of any sick pay or compensation for workplace injuries, as well as a lack of adequate occupational health care[2]. In developing nations in Asia and Africa, less than 25 percent of the work force is thought to have access to any kind of occupational health service[3]. In addition, appropriate occupational health standards have been neither universally adopted nor enforced.

Occupational exposures are thought to be widely underdiagnosed and underreported and therefore to be a greater problem than government statistics sometimes indicate[4]. For example, researchers found that the number of health-impaired workers at a single Mexican steel mill was roughly twice the number officially recorded for the whole of Mexico in 1988; the researchers reported that more than 80 percent of the mill workers were exposed to extreme heat, noise, and toxic dust[5].

The most common occupational diseases include respiratory diseases caused by particulates such as asbestos, silicon, and cotton; metal poisoning from lead; pesticide poisoning; hearing loss from excessive noise; and skin diseases due to chemical exposures[6][7]. In some instances, disease rates among exposed workers can be very high. In asbestos factories in Bombay, India, one third of workers suffered from asbestos-related lung disease, according to a 1983 report[8].

Health hazards in the workplace may be exacerbated by malnutrition or the burden of chronic diseases that workers already suffer from, both of which may lower resistance to toxic insults or infectious diseases encountered at work. For example, nonalcoholic liver disease is widespread among Africans and Asians and may make workers who suffer from it less able to detoxify the poisons that they encounter in the workplace[9].

Hazards may also be intensified by climatic conditions, such as hot and humid weather, which make it more difficult to convince workers to use protective clothing such as respirators or aprons. Long working hours, frequently demanded by employers in the developing world or opted for by the workers themselves for financial reasons, can play a part in increasing exposures to chemical toxins or increasing accident rates due to fatigue[10].

Occupational hazards are a particular problem in small-scale or home-based industries. Small enterprises make up a surprisingly large percentage of the industrial base in many nations. For example, small-scale industries with fewer than 50 employees constitute more than 40 percent of all industries in Southeast Asia. However, conditions in these settings are often much worse than those in larger industries, with poorer physical facilities, less money available to buy safe machinery or safety equipment, and a lower priority given to worker protection and safe operating procedures[11][12].

Small workshops and informal or home-based enterprises are often the worst in terms of occupational exposures, frequently making use of toxic chemicals without the proper equipment or precautions and sometimes spreading contaminants into the home environment. For example, automobile mechanics and gas vendors in many urban settings are routinely exposed to benzene, a gasoline additive, and suffer high rates of anemia and other diseases associated with benzene exposure[13]. In Jamaica, workers in small enterprises that repair and recycle lead-acid batteries often suffer from lead contamination, which can also affect their customers and families [14].

References and notes

1. Choon-Nam Ong, Jerry Jeyaratnam, and David Koh, "Factors Influencing the Assessment and Control of Occupational Hazards in Developing Countries," Environmental Research, Vol. 60, No. 1 (January 1, 1993), pp. 112-123.

2. Jorge Hardoy, Diana Mitlin, and David Satterthwaite, Environmental Problems in Third World Cities (Earthscan, London, 1992), p. 49.

3. Choon-Nam Ong, Jerry Jeyaratnam, and David Koh, "Factors Influencing the Assessment and Control of Occupational Hazards in Developing Countries," Environmental Research, Vol. 60, No. 1 (January 1, 1993), p. 114.

4. Dean Baker and Philip Landrigan, "Occupational Exposures and Human Health," in Critical Condition: Human Health and the Environment, Eric Chivian et al., eds. (MIT Press, Cambridge, Massachusetts, 1993), pp. 71-73.

5. Jorge Hardoy, Diana Mitlin, and David Satterthwaite, Environmental Problems in Third World Cities (Earthscan, London, 1992), p. 49.

6. Jorge Hardoy, Diana Mitlin, and David Satterthwaite, Environmental Problems in Third World Cities (Earthscan, London, 1992), p. 49.

7. Op. cit. 92, pp. 74-77.

8. Jorge Hardoy, Diana Mitlin, and David Satterthwaite, Environmental Problems in Third World Cities (Earthscan, London, 1992), pp. 49-50.

9. Choon-Nam Ong, Jerry Jeyaratnam, and David Koh, "Factors Influencing the Assessment and Control of Occupational Hazards in Developing Countries," Environmental Research, Vol. 60, No. 1 (January 1, 1993), pp. 113-114.

10. Choon-Nam Ong, Jerry Jeyaratnam, and David Koh, "Factors Influencing the Assessment and Control of Occupational Hazards in Developing Countries," Environmental Research, Vol. 60, No. 1 (January 1, 1993), pp. 116-117.

11. Choon-Nam Ong, Jerry Jeyaratnam, and David Koh, "Factors Influencing the Assessment and Control of Occupational Hazards in Developing Countries," Environmental Research, Vol. 60, No. 1 (January 1, 1993), p. 114.

12. Jorge Hardoy, Diana Mitlin, and David Satterthwaite, Environmental Problems in Third World Cities (Earthscan, London, 1992), p. 50.

13. Choon-Nam Ong, Jerry Jeyaratnam, and David Koh, "Factors Influencing the Assessment and Control of Occupational Hazards in Developing Countries," Environmental Research, Vol. 60, No. 1 (January 1, 1993), p. 115.

14. Jorge Hardoy, Diana Mitlin, and David Satterthwaite, Environmental Problems in Third World Cities (Earthscan, London, 1992), p. 50.