Industrial pollution and quality of life of workers in Bangladesh.

The present study was designed to investigate the effects of industrial pollution on the quality of life of workers in Bangladesh. A total of 110 workers comprising 60 from a polluted industry and 50 from a non-polluted industry were randomly selected for this study. The measuring instruments used were: The Inventory of Subjective Health (Dirken, 1967), The General Health Questionnaire (Goldberg, 1972), The Occupational Stress Index (Srivastava and Singh, 1981), The Life Descriptive Scale (Wright, 1988), and the Interview Schedule on Personal and Health Related Questionnaire (Khaleque, 1988). The results showed that the workers of the polluted industry suffered more from health problems and were less satisfied with their quality of life than those of the non-polluted industry. The results also revealed that the workers' health, well-being and quality of life were also affected by unhygienic home environment, malnutrition, transport problems, and lack of health care facilities. The result supported the view that the workplace pollution and the health and well-being of the workers were negatively related to each other.