Prevalence of Occupational Diseases Among Small and Medium Industry Workers in Malaysia: A Systematic Review

Abstract

Occupational diseases are one of the major health problems related to workplace hazards. However, the epidemiological data for this problem is scarce especially among Small and Medium Industry (SMI) workers. These workers are vulnerable to occupational health problem due to lack of knowledge and implementation of health and safety in the workplace. In Malaysia, most of the SMI workers have limited coverage for basic occupational health services which may worsen their health. Thus, this article aims to provide a review on the burden of occupational health problems among them. The electronic and library searches were used to extract the information from both published and unpublished articles that were not limited to any year of publication until 2017. One hundred and ninety-six published articles and 198 unpublished articles were retrieved from the database. Only 19 published articles and 25 unpublished articles met the eligibility criteria. Prevalence data of occupational diseases/poisoning, including overall and body specific (musculoskeletal disorders) was extracted in raw data from the eligible studies. Prevalent statistics on occupational musculoskeletal diseases (1.3% - 97.6%), noise-induced hearing loss (29.4% - 73.3%), occupational skin diseases (10.5% - 84.3%), respiratory (1.9% - 92.2%) and occupational poisoning (14.9% - 17.7%) among the working population is different within published papers compared to unpublished ones. In Malaysia, there are no specific statistic that give a true picture of the burden of occupational diseases in the SMI. However, this review concludes that musculoskeletal diseases are significant occupational problems among SMI workers.

Prevalence of Occupational Injury among Workers in the Construction, Manufacturing, and Mining Industries in Africa: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

“…The present review's pooled prevalence rate of occupation-related injuries is much higher than that reported in different parts of the world. For instance, it is higher than the rate reported in Ethiopia [51][52], Korea [53], Mexico [54], Thailand [55], China [56], Turkey [57], Iran [58], and Malaysia [59]. Methodological variation in estimating the outcome of interest and the injury site (where the studies were done) may credit the potential explanations for the above interpretation.…”

Kesesuain Karakteristik Pekerja dan Pekerja Pada Lingkungan Kerja Industri Mebel Ukir di Desa Petekeyan, Jepara-Jawa Tengah

“…Peristiwa cidera kecil seperti tangan terjepit, cidera karena bahan, kecelakaan kerja pada mata karena debu yang menyebabkan cidera kecil seperti luka/robekan termasuk dalam kategori tinggi. Penyakit akibat kerja adalah salah satu masalah kesehatan utama yang terkait dengan bahaya di tempat kerja, para pekerja ini rentan terhadap masalah kesehatan kerja karena kurangnya pengetahuan dan implementasi kesehatan dan keselamatan di tempat kerja (Yusof et. al, 2019).…”

The Prevalence and Associated Factors of Suspected Occupational Respiratory Disease Among Construction Workers in Construction Industry in Selangor, Melaka and Pahang State: Secondary Data Analysis of Registry for Occupational Disease Screening (Rods) Database 2023

“…According to an analysis of the global burden of disease data, occupational airborne exposures caused 519,100 deaths and 13.6 million disability-adjusted life years of chronic respiratory disease in 2016 (11). In Malaysia, the prevalence of ORD is between 1.9% and 92.2% among Small and Medium Industry (SMI) workers (12). Another study on the burden of occupational disease shows that lung cancer among construction workers contributed to 56% of the total causes of cancer (13).Thus, this research is needed to identify numerous associated factors that potentially contribute signi cantly to suspected ORD among construction workers in Malaysia.…”