Factors contributing to back pain the among palm oil workers in Bau-Lundu districts Sarawak

This cross sectional study was conducted to identify the prevalence of back pain and the factors contributing to back pain among the palm oil plantation workers in the district of Bau- Lundu from January 2012 to April 2012. Data was collected by face-to-face interview using a structured questionnaire as a guide. A total of 230 respondents were interviewed with a 46% response rate. The mean age of the workers was 28.7 ± 5.00 years. The majority of the workers were male 83.9% and most of them were Indonesian at 96.5%. These workers were hired on a contract basis at (96.5%). Most of them had received primary level of education at 98.2%. The mean monthly salary is RMI121 + 286.7. The median duration of work in the palm oil plantation was about 3.9 years. The prevalence of smoking is about 72.6% among the workers and Bartak estate have the highest prevalence of back pain among their workers which is 90.2%. The proportion of back pain that was related to work or back pain experienced throughout their working experiences in the last 12 months in the plantation were 82.2%. The proportion of back pain is higher among harvesters which contribute to about 86% compared to general workers which is about 70.7%. The results of this study showed a high prevalence of work related back pain could have been contributed by their daily activities that require active movement and involve manual material handling. Those workel~s who handle heavy material incorrectly are at higher risk of getting back pain by 54 fold which signify the importance of handling the heavy material correctly. The findings of this study wit! help in developing a health promotion module at work place

Knowledge, Attitude, Pictorial Health Warnings And Quitting Attempt To Smoking In Sarawak, Malaysia

Background: Every year, millions of preventable deaths and disabilities were directly and indirectly caused by smoking. Various methods have been employed and millions of dollars have been spent in order to tackle this issue. Objectives: This study was designed to identify the factors associated with knowledge, attitude and quitting attempts to smoking among adult population in Sarawak. Materials and Methods: This was a cross-sectional study conducted among the adult population in Sarawak. Data were collected from ten villages in Kota Samarahan and Kuching Division by face to face interview using modified Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) questionnaire. Non-probability sampling method was adopted to select the villages. All the households of the villages were visited, and an adult member was selected randomly from each house irrespective of the sex. After missing value imputation, a total of 1000 data were analysed using statistical software SPSS 19.0 version. Results: Analysis showed that 28.8% of the respondents were current smokers. Multiple Linear Regression Analysis (MLR) revealed that younger age, family size, marital status, scariness and in formativeness of Pictorial Health Warnings (PHWs) significantly contributed to perceived knowledge of health effects of smoking (p<0.05). Similarly level of education, perceived knowledge of health effects and information on cigarette packages have significant positive contribution to preventive attitude towards smoking, whereas non smoking status has no influence on the attitude towards smoking (p<0.05?. On the contrary, marital status, clarity and nature of information on the cigarette packages about PHWs have significantly influence for quitting attempts (p<0.05), whereas the nature of jobs such as business and service had no influence in quitting attempt of smoking (p<0.05). Conclusion: Despite numerous interventions programme for tobacco control being implemented such as PHWs, the study findings revealed that better plans and strategies for more effective preventive measures against smoking should be instituted by policy makers

Effectiveness of vero cell inactivated vaccine against severe acute respiratory infections (SARI) in Sibu, Malaysia: A retrospective test-negative design

The effectiveness of the vero cell inactivated vaccine (CoronaVac®) against severe acute respiratory infection (‎SARI)‎ caused by SARS-CoV-2 in the real world was assessed. A matched test-negative case-control design was employed using the web-based national information system, as well as the hospitalization dataset in Sibu Hospital. Vaccine effectiveness was measured by conditional logistic regression with adjustment for gender, underlying comorbidity, smoking status, and education level. Between 15 March and 30 September 2021, 838 eligible SARI patients were identified from the hospitalization records. Vaccine effectiveness was 42.4% (95% confidence interval [CI]: −28.3 to 74.1) for partial vaccination (after receiving the first dose to 14 days after receiving the second dose), and 76.5% (95% CI: 45.6 to 89.8) for complete vaccination (at 15 days or more after receiving the second dose). This analysis indicated that two doses of CoronaVac® vaccine provided efficacious protection against SARI caused by SARS-CoV-2 in the short term. However, the duration of protection, and performance against new variants need to be studied continuously