Perceived occupational hazards of sanitation workers in hydrocarbon-oil producing and servicing companies in Rivers State, Nigeria

Abstract

It is not arguable that sanitation workers in hydrocarbon-oil producing and servicing companies in Rivers State, Nigeria are bound to suffer from severe occupational hazards while doing their work, given the kind of surroundings they work in. What is more interesting here is how some of them perceive what constitute their hazards at work. The probability that their awareness of what their occupational hazards were, may in the long run define their safe acts while doing work, makes this study a necessity. A descriptive survey research design was chosen in this study. Out of 1000 sanitation workers, including their supervisors who were sampled as part of the population for this study through a preliminary investigation survey, from the 26 oil companies, 250 sample size was contrived, comprising 200 sanitation workers and 50 sanitation supervisors. A validated questionnaire instrument was used and a reliability coefficient of 0.9 was obtained using Spearman’s ranking order. A research question and null hypothesis were posed for this study. The findings of the study indicated that the sanitation workers were highly exposed to physical objects injury, machine injury, and inhalation of hydrocarbon from generators and automobiles. They were also heavily exposed to chemical hazards from insecticides, pesticides, herbicides and contacts with washing solvents and toxicants. Although, they were also exposed to cigarette odour and smoke from offices, electric shock, mosquitoes and snake bite which ranked low in their perceptions. On the whole, the null hypothesis showed that there was no significant difference between the perceptions of the sanitation workers and their supervisors on the types of occupational hazards facing the workers was accepted, at 0.05. It was recommended conclusively, that provision and implementation of sound occupational health and safety policies to this set of workers should be made by the stakeholders on their awareness