Differences in Selected Health Traits between Occupational Groups among Oraons of Jalpaiguri District, West Bengal

Abstract EN

Occupational health deals with diseases or injuries caused due to work.

Different types of work cause different types of ill-effect on health and may cause changes in health traits; empirical studies on the issues are scanty.

The present study aims to investigate the differences in selected health traits between two occupational groups of the same ethnic origin.

Cross-sectional data collected on 357 adult Oraon labourers engaged in two different occupations, namely, agriculture and brickfield in Jalpaiguri district, West Bengal, of which are 62 male and 43 female agricultural labourers and 136 male and 116 female brickfield labourers.

Data consists of anthropometric measurements, blood pressure, and haemoglobin traits.

Health status assessed in terms of BMI, systolic and diastolic blood pressure, and haemoglobin level following standard cut-off values.

Mean values of both the occupational groups show similar trends in case of selected anthropometric and health traits.

Individuals are ecto-mesomorphic irrespective of sex and occupation.

Majority of individuals of either sex of both the occupational groups are underweight but hypertensive.

In anthropological data, the trend of mean values is important than mere statistical significance.

Data indicates that both the occupational groups have similar health condition, maybe due to their heavy manual activity.