Abstract:
Industrialization is inevitable for economic advancement of any country. In this process,
country gradually shifts from small non-polluting to heavy polluting industrial structures.
While the economies brought by the industries are always admired and persuade the nation
for establishing more such structures; diseconomies caused by pollution generated by the
industries are often ignored. This is because the costs that incurred by industrial pollution
are mostly socio-environmental costs. Only way to bring these costs into attention of
people is to quantify. This study intends to identify the health impacts caused by industrial
pollutions to the adjacent population and quantify them. Shyampur is selected as study
area for this research. This area falls within Demra thana of DMDP area. In this research
samples are taken from two groups of population from the study area, one residing within
0.5 km from major industrial belt along Dhaka-Narayanganj highway (the experimental
group) and another residing within 0.5 to 1 km from the same industrial belt (the control
group). The hypothesis is people living at distance from concentrated industrial area will
report less impacts of pollution on their health. Outputs from general health information
collected by household questionnaire and weekly diary maintained for 12 weeks are
analyzed. The health impacts varied from increased frequencies of pollution induced
diseases to incidents of serious diseases like cancer or heart diseases. The study finds
higher rates of pollution induced diseases like asthma and dermatitis for experimental
group (22%-43%) than control group (15%-32%). Vulnerable age groups like new born
and most elderly people from experimental group also seem to report about these diseases
at higher rate compared to the control group. Prevalence of diseases in overall study area
varies significantly with national average. In addition, quantified health impacts such as
the cost of illness estimated from the research is almost double for the study area
compared to national average. In spite of underreporting about disease mitigation expense,
around one third of the total cost of illness (3,29,745 BDT) calculated for the study area is
spent behind only three diseases (asthma, TB and dermatitis) which are likely to be caused
by pollution. So, the study deduces the industries existing within the area might have a
major impact on the adjacent population. Finally, researcher would like to suggest
adaptation of technologies and enforcement of laws for industrial developments to keep
pollution and effects of pollution under control. A comprehensive and sustainable
industrial development for the country can be attained through infrastructural upgradation
and awareness building. It is also suggested that instead of focusing on short term
economic gains by industrialization, priority should be placed on long term affects on
people’s health by ensuring of sustainable industrial advancement.
