Occupational Health Hazards of Tribal Farm Women of Assam in Farming and Household Activities

Abstract

The present investigation into the occupational health hazards of tribal farm women in Assam in farming and household activities was carried out in three agro-climatic zones from the Brahmaputra Valley Zone. A multi-stage purposive simple random sampling design was followed for sample selection. One district from each zone, namely Majuli of the Upper Brahmaputra Valley Zone, Morigaon of the Central Brahmaputra Valley Zone and Kokrajhar of the Lower Brahmaputra Valley Zone, was selected purposively where majority of the tribal people live. From the one district, one subdivision and from one subdivision, one block was selected. From the selected three blocks, two villages were selected from each of the blocks. Thus, six (06) villages were selected for the study. From each of the villages, fifty (50) respondents were selected randomly. A total of 300 tribal farm women were selected randomly who were engaged in farming and nonfarm activities for the present study. Data collection was done by using a structured interview schedule. The study revealed that the majority of the tribal farm women (43.66%) were from the middle aged group (36-46 years) and married (83.67%). The majority of tribal farm women (75.00%) had farming as a family occupation, followed by 64.67 percent of marginal farmers, 72.33 percent of nuclear families and 61.33 percent of medium socioeconomic status. 66.00 percent of respondents had occasional contact with the ADO/Agricultural Office and 60.00 percent had attended various agriculture-related training programmes on a regular basis. case of pre-harvesting activities, the majority of tribal farm women independently participated in mulching (71.00%) and jointly participated in transplanting, planting, and sowing of seeds (70.00%). In the case of farming, 86.66 percent independently participated in seed cleaning and 49.00% jointly participated in seed storing. Regarding household activities, the majority of tribal farm women participated independently in pre-preparation of cooking (96.67%) and join..