Health sufferings, healthcare seeking behavior, awareness about health insurance, and health related rights of ready made garments workers in Bangladesh: Findings from a cross-sectional study

OBJECTIVES

This study aimed at examining health sufferings of readymade garments (RMG) workers, the factors that affect their health sufferings, their healthcare seeking pattern, knowledge about health insurance and health related rights in Bangladesh.

METHODS

A cross-sectional study was conducted among 486 RMG workers recruited randomly from eight garments factories located on the periphery of Dhaka, Bangladesh. The prevalence of musculoskeletal pain, headache, fever and abdominal pain was estimated and multivariable logistic regression analysis was performed to examine association between these illnesses of workers and their socio-demographic characteristics and other work related information. We also explored their healthcare seeking patterns, knowledge about health insurance and health related rights.

RESULTS

The prevalence of musculoskeletal pain, headache, fever and abdominal pain was found to be 78.1%, 57.9%, 52.2% and 24.6%, respectively, among the RMG workers. Factors that increased the odds of: musculoskeletal pain were working for more than 10 h per day (adjusted odds ratio [AOR]: 2.3, 95% confidence interval [CI]: 1.1-4.7) and being female [AOR: 4.6, 95% CI: 2.0-10.6]; fever was living in slums [AOR: 1.9, 95% CI: 1.1-3.5]; and abdominal pain was being female [AOR: 3.6, 95% CI: 1.4-9.3]. The workers commonly reported visiting drug sellers in local pharmacies for reported illnesses. They also had better knowledge of health related rights but poor knowledge of health insurance.

CONCLUSION

In order to address the overall health and well-being of the RMG workers, it is imperative to lay out a blueprint for a safe and healthy workplace.

Attrition at the enamel-restoration interface

At present, aesthetic restorative dental materials such as composite resin, porcelain, castable ceramics, etc are routinely used to restore the occlusal surfaces of posterior teeth. However, it is desirable that restorative materials should possess wear rate comparable to that of enamel. The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effects of hypothesized attrition at the enamel-restoration interface using various types of direct and indirect composite resins. Results showed that there was no correlation between the quantitative wear of the upper and lower specimens. Remarkable marginal integrity was observed in the majority of the specimens with no significant step formation at the margin thereby suggesting satisfactory transition. SEM evaluation of the worn surfaces revealed various morphological features.