Assessing the impact of occupational Health hazard in Ghana

The scope of the occupational health (OH) program in Ghana has steadily evolved and improved especially among private companies. The study assessed the impact of occupational health programme in Gold Fields Ghana (GFG) Limited which deployed a descriptive cross-sectional study. One hundred mine workers were selected as respondents to answer various questions on occupational health through simple random technique as well as an interview guide to interview the occupational health manager for the mine to ascertain their knowledge and the company's commitment to OH. Statistical package for social sciences (SPSS) version 21.0 was used to analyze the data and MS excel spreadsheet was used in editing the graphs. About 26% of the workforce largely has only basic education but an amazing 91% of the workforce has fair knowledge about OH. This was possible through GFGs induction and training program where about 74% of the respondents heard about OH. Degree of exposure to selected hazards were assessed: chemical exposure was low with response from a majority 35%, 36% was rated exposure to hydrocarbons as low, 46% and 50% rated exposure to dust and noise in the mine as very high.