Eye protection practices and symptoms among welders in the Limpopo Province of South Africa+

Welding is associated with several ocular and systemic hazards especially where adequate protective measures are not taken.  The purpose of this project was to study the eye protection practices and symptoms among welders in the Capricorn District of Limpopo Province, South Africa. Questionnaires designed to investigate eye protection practices and symptoms experienced were completed byone hundred and fifty (150) welders. The types of welding done were shielded metal arc (84%), oxyacetylene gas (4%) and silver brazing (12%). The number of years spent in the welding industry ranged from one to 10 years with a mean of 5 ± 3.1 years and the number of hours of welding per day ranged from one to 10 hours with a mean of 6 ± 2.1 hours. A large percentage of the welders (89%) reported wearing protective devices when welding and the most common protective devices used by the welders were: helmets (57%), goggles(22%), and face shields (15%). Six percent used inefficient protective devices such as sunglasses.   Sixty one percent reported occasional exposure to welding flashes when not wearing any eye protection. Welding-related eye symptoms reported included foreign body sensation (18%), persistent after-images (31%), and watery eyes (50%).  Al- though the majority of the welders wore protective devices while welding, a few did not always use such devices while others used sunglasses for protection.  Moreover, many of the welders were occasionally, and only a few were always, exposed to welding flashes when protective devices were not used. Therefore, we concluded that eye protectionpractices amongst the welders appeared to be inadequate to avoid hazards associated with welding.  It is recommended that an eye protection educational campaign for welders should form part of the SouthAfrican Government’s workplace safety program

KELUHAN SUBJEKTIF PHOTOKERATITIS PADA MATA PEKERJA LAS SEKTOR INFORMAL DI KELURAHAN CIRENDEU DAN CIPUTAT TANGERANG SELATAN

Tukang las seringkali berpotensi terkena cedera akibat silau dan paparan radiasi ultra violet yang dapat menyebabkan photokeratosis. Penelitian dilakukan untuk mengetahui apakah terdapat keluhan subjektif Photokeratitis pekerja las sektor informal. Jenis penelitian ini adalah deskriptif dengan pendekatan cross sectional, dilaksanakan pada bulan Juli-November 2014. Data diambil melalui kuesioner dan wawancara langsung pada 32 pekerja yang bersedia menjadi responden. Hasil penelitian menunjukkan sebanyak 20 pekerja (62.55%) dari 32 pekerja mengalami keluhan subjektif photokeratitis. Keluhan paling banyak adalah rasa silau sebanyak 22 pekerja (68.8%) kemudian rasa ada benda asing seperti pasir sebanyak 18 pekerja (56.2%) dan terasa Perih 17 pekerja (53.1%). Kesimpulan, sebagian besar pekerja mengalami keluhan subjektif photokeratitis. Kata Kunci : Keluhan Subjektif, pekerja las informal, photokeratiti

Effect of An Educational Intervention About Occupational Safety on Knowledge and Practices of Male Students in Technical Mechanical Secondary Schools in El-Behira Governorate

Background. Occupational health and safety is one of the most important aspects of human concern. The Aim of this study is to evaluate the effect of educational intervention about occupational safety on knowledge and practice of male students in technical mechanical secondary schools in El-Behira governorate. Hypothesis: Technical Mechanical secondary school male students who engage in occupational safety intervention will demonstrate higher level of knowledge and practice than those who are not . Material and Methods: Quasi-experimental pre/post–test research design. Settings: the study was conducted in four technical mechanical secondary schools in El-Behira governorate. Subjects: the study was carried on 280 students (140 were cases and 140 were control).Data collection tools: data were collected using three tools: structured self-administered questionnaire, Students' knowledge regarding occupational safety and observation check list regarding safety measures practices in the training workshops.Results: conveyed that less than half (46.4%, 47.9%) of both the study and the control group respectively were aged between   16 to less than 17 years. All the study group and the control one had poor knowledge regarding occupational health and safety before conduction of the educational intervention, whereas after implementation of the educational intervention, more than three quarters of the study group (85.7%) had good knowledge whereas the vast majority of the control group (99.3%) still had poor knowledge  . There was a statistically significant relation between the department and the total knowledge score of the study group (X2= 14.150 , P=0.007*).Conclusion: The educational program is successful in attaining its aim of positively improving knowledge, and practice of the study group   about Occupational Health and Safety.Recommendations: this study recommend the necessity of provision of personal protective equipment to the students in the school workshops and integrating occupational safety topics in their curriculum. Keywords: Educational intervention, occupational health, Knowledge, Technical secondary schools. DOI: 10.7176/JHMN/80-05 Publication date:September 30th 202

Research Report to Programme to Support Pro-Poor Policy Development in South Africa (PSPPD)

This report documents research conducted on small-scale informal self-employment at the margins of the South African economy. Despite high levels of poverty and unemployment South Africa has, by developing country standards, comparatively low levels of informal economic activity. Economic informality is therefore not only an issue of theoretical interest, but also one of significant public policy salience. The research combined qualitative and quantitative inquiry to understanding the contribution of informal self-employment to the livelihoods of impoverished households, along with factors that enable and constrain informal it. These empirical questions were examined in relation to current state policies and programmes targeted at the informal sector. The report concludes with policy recommendations intended to enhance the ability of policy makers to support the livelihoods of impoverished South Africans

The epidemiology of ocular injuries among patients presenting to provincial hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.

M. Med. Sc. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville 2011.Purpose: Ocular injuries are increasingly becoming the permanent cause of visual blindness (Mufti et al, 2004). Most of the previous studies in this area are done in countries outside the African context. A limited number of general surveys in ocular trauma appear in the ophthalmic literature in South Africa. The purpose of this study was to provide epidemiological data on ocular injuries among patients utilising the provincial hospitals eye services in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Methods: A quantitative retrospective study design was carried out by collecting data on 660 patient’s record cards with ocular injuries presenting to four selected provincial eye care clinics for a four year period (January 2005-December 2008). Using a data sheet devised for capturing of the information, the following data was retrieved: (i) demographics details, (ii) place of trauma (iii) nature of trauma, (iv) type of injury, (v) management and (vi) visual outcomes following primary eye care. All patients who presented to the eye clinics with ocular injuries within the specified four years, both genders, all race groups and all age groups were included in the study. Results: There were 440 patients’ records reviewed at rural hospitals and 220 at urban hospitals. Males were more likely than females to have ever experienced an eye injury (72.3% versus 27.7%, respectively) and urban males were more likely than rural males to incur an eye injury (79.1% versus 68.9%, respectively). The Black population has a higher prevalence of ocular injuries than other race groups: Blacks 93.8% followed by Indians 3.9%, Coloureds 2% and the least in Whites 0.3%. Over one-third of all the patients were between 21 and 30 years old with second highest percentage of patients being in the age category of 31 to 40 years. A significant percentage of patients were children (13.8%) up to the age of 12 years. Open globe injuries were more frequent (56.2%) than closed globe injuries (43.8%). Blunt trauma/contusion was the most frequent type of injury (35.2%). More than half of patients (50.9%) had associated ocular signs with the predominance of haemorrhages (15.9%). The majority of the patients presenting with ocular signs had incurred blunt trauma (54%). Only 3.5% of all injuries were bilateral and 96.5% were unilateral. Solid objects were responsible for more than half of the injuries (54.4%) occurring either in the home or at work, followed by assaults (24.3%) and chemical burns (6.2%). Three percent of patients’ records (n=17) had substance (alcohol) abuse documented. The home accounted for the majority of the eye injuries (60.6%) followed by the social environment (15.2%), workplace or industry (13.6%), commercial workplace and agriculture had the same number of injuries (4.1%) and sports or leisure facilities (2.4%). The home remained the single most frequent place for an injury to occur across all age groups, highest in the 21 to 30 age group (26.8%, n=107) followed by 21.3% (n=85) in the 0 to 12 age group. Thirty patients (4.5%) required surgical intervention at initial presentation. Three hundred and forty patients (51.5%) returned for follow up examination. Only 9 (9.2%) patients with initial poor vision (<6/60) achieved 6/12 or better visual acuity after treatment. In 17 (38.6%) patients, visual acuity remained the same as initial visual acuity (6/15-6/60) and got worse in 5 (7.8%) patients (<6/60). Twenty six (59.1%) patients achieved between 6/15-6/60 vision after presenting with poor vision and 59 (92.2%) remained with poor vision after treatment. Conclusion: Ocular trauma is a relatively common problem in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, occurring most frequently in young adults and males warranting presentation to the eye casualty department for treatment. Ocular trauma is usually unilateral, but can also be bilateral and this remains a significant major public health problem. People engaged in agriculture, in industry, in the home, in the social environment, in sports and people living in rural communities are at highest risk. This warrants specific, targeted, prevention measures to be put in place to minimize the incidence of visually damaging trauma

Risk-based assessment of environmental asbestos contamination in the Northern Cape and North West provinces of South Africa

The commercial mining of asbestos occurred in four Provinces of South Africa (Northern Cape, North West, Limpopo and Mpumalanga). It was initiated in the late 1800's and lasted for over a hundred years into the beginning of this century. As a producer of amphibole asbestos, South Africa far outpaced every other country being responsible for 97% of global production. The last crocidolite mine closed in 1996 and chrysotile in 2002. Anecdotal information concerning environmental contamination as a result of the former mining activities and the improper disposal of mine waste tailings has been reported by a variety of authors. Few comprehensive or systematic surveys have been conducted to date to document this issue and very little quantifiable research has been completed on the communities located in close proximity to the former mine sites to determine the extent of contamination. In 2004-2006 communities were surveyed within the Northern Cape and North West Provinces to determine the extent and severity of environmental contamination. This research developed and applied a methodology to select those communities suspected of environmental contamination, a targeted survey methodology, and a protocol for rapid sample laboratory analysis. A total of 41 communities were initially predicted by the model to be suspected for environmental asbestos contamination. Based on the inclusion of local knowledge, a final 36 communities were selected for a screening-level field assessment, 34 of which were found to contain environmental asbestos contamination at rates ranging from 20 to 100% of the surveyed locations. A total of 1 843 samples of soil and building material were collected in the screening level assessment. One community (Ga-Mopedi) was selected as being representative of the total cohort and a more detailed house to house survey was completed. A total of 1 486 samples were collected during the detailed survey. Results of the detailed survey revealed 26.2% of the homes were contaminated with asbestos containing soil and/or building material. A theoretical quantitative cumulative exposure assessment was developed to estimate the disease burden within the study area population of 126,130 individuals within the surveyed communities resulting in a predicted range of 25-52.4 excess deaths per year from lung cancer and mesothelioma due solely to environmental exposures to asbestos pollution

The evolution of large technical systems in the Waterberg coalfield of South Africa: from apartheid to democracy

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy. Johannesburg, March 2017.This thesis follows the development of a particular set of large technical systems in South Africa from the late apartheid era into the age of democracy. During apartheid technological prowess, upheld by the network of state corporations or parastatals, bolstered the authoritarian rule of the white minority government in South Africa. The economic and political liberalisation of the late 1980s challenged the power of the parastatals and altered the underlying rationale of infrastructure development. In particular I describe the transformation of Iscor and Eskom, two of the country’s major parastatals, and their activities in the Waterberg coalfields, an isolated region on the country’s north-western border. While Eskom’s activities in the region began in the 1980s they gained public notoriety with the construction of the Medupi power station two decades later. The obstacles that Eskom faced at Medupi represent the main challenge of developing large technological infrastructures in the democratic, post-colonial order, where the fruits of infrastructure development demand to be spread beyond the bounds of an elite minority. But the eventual completion of some power generating units in 2015 at Medupi demonstrates that failure is not inevitable. I argue that this success is due to the fact that the autonomous parastatal network negotiated the political and economic liberalisation of the early 1990 by incorporating the changing socio-political conditions into its operations. The parastatal network retained a momentum, in the sense first described by the historian of technology Thomas Hughes, which was also a product of the “locked-in” nature of investment in the infrastructure project. Because of the large capital investment required for the infrastructure development, proceeding tenaciously against the odds to see the project to completion was cheaper than retreat for those involved.MT201

Demographic differences in exposure to toxic trace elements in urban South Africa during the 20th century.

Exposure to toxic elements is a significant threat to public and individual health worldwide. Toxic elements such as heavy metals are associated with increased mortality and morbidity in both men and women and are a substantial contributor to neurological deficits and developmental delay in children. Analysis of skeletal material yields important information regarding exposure to toxic elements in a given population. This project has investigated toxic element exposure in 215 adults living in urban South Africa who died between 1960 and 1999. Exposure to toxic elements, particularly exposure to lead, has significant impacts on human health, even at very low levels. To date, little research has been conducted on human exposure to toxic elements in adult urban South Africans and a clear gap exists regarding toxic element exposure rates during the latter half of the 20th century. Among the primary aims of this research is to address this gap in knowledge and to quantify human exposure to these elements during the apartheid era. Bone element concentration was analysed by ICP-MS to determine the concentration of six elements that are toxic to humans: lead, cadmium, manganese, arsenic, antimony and vanadium. The results of this research demonstrate clear racial divisions in toxic element exposure in all but one element investigated. In the case of lead and cadmium, white males in the sampled population show significantly higher bone element concentrations than either black males or black females. It is surmised that apartheid-era separation of racial groups in regards to residence, occupation and movement within the urban landscape are partly, if not significantly, responsible for these differences in toxic element exposure. Lead exposure is strongly associated with exposure to traffic in urban Pretoria and Johannesburg, which is evident in both the limited environmental data available and the present study. Designated residential areas for white individuals were situated in and adjacent to the central business districts of both cities and are the areas associated with high traffic. Black residential areas were located on the urban periphery, often near industrial areas and mine dumps. The result is a lead exposure pattern by which white individuals in the sampled population yield double the bone lead concentration of black individuals. The wide divide in socioeconomic strata between the black and white population also factors significantly and is an additional result of apartheid policy. For arsenic and antimony, black individuals, particularly females, show significantly higher bone element concentration than white individuals. These elements are strongly associated with acid mine drainage, a form of pollution which results from mining activity. The close proximity of black residential areas to mining activities and the heavy reliance on ii contaminated surface water is likely responsible for higher exposure rates to these elements in the black population. This research has established that rates of exposure to toxic elements in urban Transvaal were moderate considering the level of industrial and mining activity in the region and the notably lax environmental regulations in place during the latter half of the 20th century. Despite this, bone element levels, particularly that of lead, cadmium and manganese are within ranges documented to cause negative impacts on human health. It is highly likely, given the bone element concentrations reported here, that these elements caused significant and negative health effects in the sampled population and were a clear threat to overall public health in urban South Africans

Appropriateness of municipal workers' job behaviour and performance at the Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality

The Buffalo City Metropolitan Municipality (BCMM) has been experiencing inappropriate job behaviour and performance from some of its workers. These inappropriate practices have been widely reported in the media, audit reports, parliamentary discussions, reports to parliament, municipal reports, and departmental reports. They include misappropriation of municipal resources, maladministration, mismanagement, lack of service delivery, fraud, and corruption. Since many BCMM workers have various levels of formal education, such practices are not expected, because the structural-functionalist assumption is that formal education is a solution to societal challenges. At the BCMM, however, formal education seemed to also serve a different purpose, that of realising the principle that says “[k]now the rules well, so you can break them effectively” (Dalai Lama 2013, 2). This study therefore hypothesises that the perpetual inappropriate job behaviour and performance at the BCMM is due to the paucity of broad skills. The concept of broad skills includes the various dimensions of knowledge (know that, know why, know how) as well as attitudes, ethics and values. Inappropriate job behaviour and performance practices thus indicate that current levels of broad skills are insufficient. This study acknowledges that labour (ability to work) is a product of multifarious forms of capital, hence this study amalgamates four forms of capital - human capital, social capital, cultural capital, and reputation capital – into a theoretical framework in order to get a broader explanation of the workers’ job behaviour and performance. The various forms of capital contribute to the formation of skill, hence the notion of broad skills. How workers discharge their responsibilities is determined by numerous factors such as cultural capital (the workers’ family background, race, ethnicity, personality, and geographical area) (Bourdieu 1977); reputation capital (the workers’ brand, public perceptions of trustworthiness, popularity, authority in the field, ethics, integrity and reputation) (Ingbretsen 2011); social capital (the workers’ social development, social relations, and social networks) (Blackmore 1997); and human capital (schooling) (Becker 1964). The value of adopting the broad skills approach lies in gaining a broader perspective on job performance as opposed to the dominant use of the human capital model alone which predominantly uses schooling to explain job performance. In practice, the human capital model is characterised by its association of job performance problems with lack of skills. However, investigation of the role of attitudes, ethics and values in the labour process reveals that the lack of will also contributes to job performance problems. In fact, the adoption of multiple perspectives for investigating the paradoxical co-existence of inappropriate job behaviour and performance with formal education reveals several factors that make this phenomenon possible, besides lack of skills. These include the job environment, ineffective performance management systems, compromised municipal effectiveness and efficiency due to the politicisation of municipal management, and manipulation of the labour process to suit the interests of the workers who want to engage in inappropriate practices

Influence of psychological factors, political environment and information awareness on entrepreneurial behaviour among youths in Mpumalanga province.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban.Determining the Influence of Psychological factors, political environment and information awareness on youth’s entrepreneurial behaviour in Mpumalanga province is important to foster effective entrepreneurial interest. Although there are many investigations into youths seemingly lack of interest in entrepreneurial participation; however the level of influence of these constructs on entrepreneurial behaviour has not been extensively researched. It is on this premise that this study investigated these constructs to determine its influence on entrepreneurial behaviour and also seek to provide suggestions that can assist government effect paradigm shift in Mpumalanga youths interest in entrepreneurial activities thereby reducing the social vices that comes with high unemployment rate in the province. Adopting pragmatic philosophy and mono-method approach to collect quantitative data to find answers to the research questions with 355 questionnaires administered among unemployed youths in three districts of Mpumalanga province, South Africa. A simple random sampling technique was adopted to draw samples from each of the three major districts and descriptive, inferential analysis was used to analyse data. Regression analysis finds causal relationship between the independent variables (psychological factors, political environment and information awareness) and dependent variable (entrepreneurial behaviour) to see the level of influence on the constructs. The study found a statistical significant relationship between psychological factors and entrepreneurial behaviour, with home stressors and community stressors showing significant statistical agreement to the construct. So also, do political environment and information awareness have significant influence on Mpumalanga youths entrepreneurial behaviour. While psychological factors and information awareness has significant influence on entrepreneurial behaviour; political environment is the main influencer of Mpumalanga youths’ entrepreneurial behaviour. To sum up, the results of the study enabled constructive suggestions that can assist government effect paradigm shift in Mpumalanga youths interest in entrepreneurial activities thereby reducing the social vices that comes with high unemployment rate in the province. Finally, the study outspreads the limits of knowledge in the field of business administration by offering- a four- stage approach suggestion to influence Mpumalanga youth’s entrepreneurial behaviour which includes (a) communication, training and entertainment, (b) Carrot and stick system, (c) Reward mechanism to foster entrepreneurial behaviour (d) Teach-back and feedback system