Impact of Air Pollution on Respiratory Health of Traffic Wardens in Lahore

Air Pollution and Respiratory Health

Abstract

Background: Air pollution is the most serious environmental and health issue in crowded cities. Field workers and professionals who have to perform their duties while remaining in the open air are the most affected ones. Air pollution poses multidimensional threats to health of which respiratory issues are the most serious. Objective: To access the impact of air pollution on the respiratory health of traffic wardens in Lahore. Methods: The duration of this cross-sectional study spanned over six months and was conducted in Lahore. The sample size taken was 184 calculated by the open Epitool. On-duty traffic wardens who had rotations on field sites, aged between 25 to 60 years and with a duty time of more than 4 hours were included in the study. Traffic wardens who only performed office jobs had a known respiratory disease or had previously been on medication for a respiratory disease were excluded. The methodology employed was a cross-sectional survey involving 184 traffic wardens who met the inclusion criteria. These wardens had a mandatory field duty, fell within the age range of 25-60 years, and had a duty time exceeding 4 hours per day. A self-determined questionnaire was used in the survey to assess the participants' respiratory status based on a set of predictive symptoms.  Continuous data such as means and standard deviations were analyzed and represented using histograms and qualitative categorical data, on the other hand, was analyzed in terms of frequency percentages, and visualized using pie and bar charts. Results: The descriptive statistics showed that mean and standard deviation were found to be 32.51±4.27 for age, 77.50±3.62 for weight (kg),1.74±0.05 for height (m) and 25.60±2.00 for body mass index. The results regarding the air pollution quality index showed that the mean and standard deviation were found to be 269.00±33.136. Results regarding breathlessness showed that there were 23.4% affected and 27.7% not affected. Conclusion: It concluded that the majority of traffic wardens exhibited moderately affected respiratory profile, on the clinical to sub-clinical level, based on the symptoms. The air pollution index of Lahore cites was found in categories of unhealthy to very unhealthy.