Evaluation of occupational injuries among building construction workers in Uganda

Abstract

Occupational injuries pose major public health and socioeconomic developmental problems. The rate of injuries is low in high-income countries than in middle and low-income countries (LMICs) despite the low rate of reporting of occupational injuries in LMICs and Uganda is not exclusion struggling to meet population needs. Building construction is one of the fast-growing industries in Kampala city characterized by frequent accidents but there are unviable statistics that can be used to inform relevant bodies about injury prevention and control measures. Thus, this study is aimed at evaluating the association of different socio-demographic, behavioral and work characteristics with the prevalence of occupational injury among building construction workers. A survey was done on 69 building construction workers in the central division of Kampala District that were on duty in a period of 2 months before the survey. Pretested self-administered questionnaires were used to collect data. It was noted that there was high prevalence of occupational injuries of among the workers which was relative to similar cases reported in other African developing countries and could easily be attributed to absence of on-site hazard communication measures on majority of the sites, majority did not use personal protective equipment (PPE) and many workers did not have certified training from a training institute. It was therefore recommended that occupational injury prevention and control measures, which include approaches integrating education for behaviour change, advocacy and training workers to demand for their rights to safety and protection at work, and legislation enforcement should be implemented in Uganda.