Introduction: Street Sweeping plays an important role in maintaining the health and
hygiene in cities. This job exposes street sweepers to a variety of risk factors that
leads to multiple health hazards such as: respiratory system problems, cardiovascular
degeneration, musculoskeletal disorders, infections, skin and gastrointestinal problems.
Aim of work: To study the prevalence of some dermatological and respiratory
manifestations among street sweepers and its relevance with occupational exposure.
Materials and methods: The present study is a comparative cross-sectional study,
conducted at Benha city, Qualubya Governorate, Egypt. Data was collected over a
period of 4 months. Cluster random sampling was used to choose the study groups as
we choose 5 quarters out from 16 quarters in Benha city by simple random sample.
The total number of participant enrolled in this study was 200 individuals (126 street
sweepers as a study group and 74 administrative staff as a control), all were nonsmokers,
matched for duration of work and age. Results: Significant higher percentage
of skin disorders was detected among street sweepers in comparison to administrative
staff: hair loss (19 % vs. 6.8%), scabies (15.1% vs. 4%), frunculosis (18.3% vs. 4.1%),
contact dermatitis (17.5% vs. 2.7%), infected wound (11 % vs. 1.4 %), and varicosities
(25.4% vs. 6.8%) (p< 0.01). Pulmonary function tests of street sweepers showed
significant decline of (FEV1, FVC and FEV1/FVC ratio) in comparison to the control
group. Our study revealed strong association between working for 10 years or more
and development of chronic cough, phlegm (p value < 0.01), wheezes and feeling of
shortness of breath (p value < 0.05). More than fifty percent of street sweepers were not wearing personal protective clothes at all. Conclusion: Exposure of sweeper’s workers
to many health hazards and poor use of protective equipments are associated with skin
and respiratory diseases