الفهرس 
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Abstract
Working in printing industry is full of potential risks and hazards that can be mitigated through proper occupational health and safety practices or adoption of safety precautionary measures and use of personal protective equipments among workers.
The aim of this work was to compare the health status of the printing workers with that of administrative department employees, to identify the awareness of workers in the printing press about different exposures, to identify the types of health hazards that the workers are exposed to, to describe the conformance of the printing press environment regarding certain safety standards, to deliver a concise health education message to printing workers regarding workplace health hazards.
A structured interview questionnaire was designed and applied on (171) printing workers & (175) administrative department employees. The questionnaire includes Section I: Sociodemographic characteristics of the studied participants. Section II: Awareness about different exposures that can affect worker’s health. Section ΙIΙ: Assessment of the worker’s health through asking about various symptoms of different systems. Section IV: compliance of the worker to safety & security standards, through the use of personal protective equipment. A checklist about the environmental hazards assessing home environment were used.
Regarding the sociodemographic characteristics of the studied printing workers: more than half of the workers with age from ranging from (30-49) years. All the workers were males. More than half of the workers have secondary or technical education. 40.9% were current smokers.
Regarding the job specialty of the printing workers; more than half of the printing press workers (53.2%) were working in the printing process, more than one quarter (26.3%) were working in book binding, (15.8%) in the computer preparation and only (4.7%) in the computer to plate process (CTP). All the administrative department employees work as office workers.
Regarding employees’ awareness regarding various occupational hazards; printing press workers (exposed group) were significantly more aware than administrative department employees (non-exposed group) (73.1% vs 48.6%) regarding their exposure to various occupational health hazards (P<0.01).
Regarding occupational exposures encountered as reported by the printing press workers; exposure to chemicals affecting respiratory system was the most common occupational hazard reported by more than half of the printing press workers (50.9%), followed by exposure to chemicals affecting the skin (33.3%), chemicals affecting eye (26.9%), noise (24.6%), & unavailability of personal protective equipments (19.9%).
Regarding health conditions aggravated by work as reported by the workers; there were statistically difference between both groups regarding occurrence of eye irritation, inability to hear, tinnitus, tremors, backache, leg pain, numbness, Asthma symptoms, chronic cough, allergic dermatitis, eczema, skin burn and liver diseases.
Regarding the use of personal protective equipments; only (4.1%), (3.5%) & (1.8%) of printing press workers reported use of gloves, ear plugs & gowns respectively. None of them ever used eye protection & face mask. The main reason of not using the PPEs; (98.2%) stated that the PPEs were not available.
Recommendations include Screening for different systems affection, Provision of personal protective equipments, Educating & training the workers about the hazards they are exposed to and how to deal safely with them & Monitoring of noise also air sampling and monitoring for volatile organic emissions (VOCs) and adopting safety measures to reduce them.