Nutritional Status, Personal Hygiene and Health Seeking Behavior of the Workers of British American Tobacco Company, Dhaka, Bangladesh

This cross sectional study was carried out among the workers of British American Tobacco Company, Dhaka with a view to explore their nutritional status, personal hygiene and health seeking behavior as because they are working on a tobacco processing company. The sample size was 179 which were selected purposively. The study showed that out of 179 respondents 89 (49.7%) were in the age groups of 30-39 years and the mean age of the respondents were 31.99 ± 6.01 years. A large number of respondents (55.9%) had monthly family income of Taka 10001-20000 and the mean family income was Taka 12776.54 ± 5230.13. Maximum respondents (73.7%) were Muslim, more than half (54.2%) were shift in charge, 39.1% of the respondents consisted of 4 family members, 43.6% respondents were accustomed to other type of eating habit and 38.5% respondents knew that malnutrition was the effect of lack of proper nutrition, 59.8% of the respondents knew that night blindness was the disease due to malnutrition, most of the respondents (91.6%) performed duties to maintain health, majority (62.0%) respondents used to do nothing to maintain healthcare for their children and 35.9% visited doctor’s single time in a month, 40.2% of the respondents told regular tooth brushing as type of healthy habits. Majority (64.8%) respondents used to brush twice a day, majority (50.8%) respondents used to wash hand after toileting, majority (62.08%) respondents used to bath daily, 43.0% and 31.8% of the respondents told that dysentery and diarrhea was due to eating without proper hand washing respectively. Majority (53.6%) respondents informed that they learned about personal hygiene from television, 45.8% respondents understood that use of safe water in every work as sanitation. Majority (50.84%) came from nuclear family; most (84.92%) had exercise habit and 40.22% had education level of class VIII. Most (75.42%) of the respondents had semi pucca houses and majority (69.83%) of the respondents used only water as materials for hand washing. This study provided some important information which might help the concerned authority to take appropriate measures to improve the health status of the workers.

Obituary: Dr. Richard Roland Baker

Richard Baker died at Easter 2007 after a very short illness. It is sad that he died so soon after his retirement from the British American Tobacco Company at the end of 2005, and just as he was beginning to enjoy his new life, even though tobacco science still had a part to play.In 2006 Richard received the Tobacco Science Research Conference Lifetime Achievement Award, and at this time Thomas Perfetti, in this journal, described his distinguished scientific career in some detail. I will not repeat the list of these remarkable achievements, but can only add that he may well be the only scientist ever to be awarded the ultimate research degree, a D. Sc., by a British University for research activities while working for a tobacco company. Bearing in mind anti-tobacco sentiment this was a breath-taking achievement.Richard joined B.A.T. in 1971 and came to live quite near us on the outskirts of Southampton. We got to know Richard and Jackie well. Being a few years older several of the younger Thornton's then acted as baby-sitters as the younger Baker's appeared on the scene. Richard's enthusiasm for jogging and long-distance running was well known. As he jogged by the entrance to my house on foggy mornings he became a well-known health hazard, both to himself and to me.Richard's interests also included local politics and schools and indicated his great interest in people and their well-being. He was a kind and thoughtful colleague. When we moved house in 1976 Richard and Jackie sent us a good luck card, repeated in 1994 when we moved, briefly and spectacularly, to New Delhi.Richard's last years were evidently as full as ever, and he was still publishing scientific papers in his role as a Consultant. He was close to his family and children. Grandchildren, of whom he was very fond, had arrived. Richard and Jackie had also acquired a holiday home in their beloved Lake District in N.W. England.I, and everyone who met him, will have fond recollections of Richard as a delightful person and as an outstanding scientist, and above all we would like Jackie to know how we regarded him.