Prevalence of respiratory symptoms among wheat flour mill workers in Ibadan, Nigeria

Abstract

The study concluded that wheat flour mill workers in Nigeria, like grain workers elsewhere, were at an increased risk of developing both pulmonary and non-pulmonary symptoms compared with control subjects. The result has implications for improved dust control measures in the grain industry in Nigeria.

Respiratory Morbidity Induced by Occupational Inhalation Exposure to High Concentrations of Wheat Flour Dust

“…Given the above, and the fact that all important confounders were controlled and accounted for in this study, an increased prevalence of respiratory symptoms (cough, phlegm, productive cough, wheezing and dyspnea) as well as significant decrements in the parameters of pulmonary function (VC, FVC, FEV 1 , FEV 1 /FVC and PEF) may well be explained by exposure to flour dust. Consistent with other studies [3,26,27,28], respiratory symptoms were found to be significantly more prevalent among exposed subjects (Table 2). Similarly, occupational exposure to flour dust has been reported to lead to reduction of ventilatory capacities [12,13,14,15,16,17].…”

Pulmonary functions of wheat flour mill workers and controls in Ibadan, Nigeria

“…Dust concentration expressed in mg/m 3 was calculated from the changes in weight of the filter (before and after sampling) divided by the volume of air sampled. The dust samples were further analyzed to confirm that they consisted of organic wheat flour material as was previously reported [Ijadunola et al, 2004].…”

Allergic Rhinitis and its Impact on Asthma (ARIA) 2008*

“…More recently, asthma, COPD, chronic cough and/or rhinitis induced by occupational exposure have been identified in developing countries (591,(624)(625)(626)(627)(628)(629)(630)(631)(632)(633)(634)(635)(636)(637)(638).…”