Occupational Diseases and Health Awareness through Multimedia: A Case Study among Women at Risk Employed in Coir Retting in Kerala, India. This item is unavailable.Occupational Diseases and Health Awareness through Multimedia: A Case Study among Women at Risk Employed in Coir Retting in Kerala, India

Kerala is a major coconut producing state of India. Coir Industry is an important sector as far as economy of Kerala is concerned. The industry provides direct employment to more than 3.5lakh workers, majority of whom are female. Retting of husk presents unique and extremely serious problems along the coastal belt. Besides the ecological degradation, the unhygienic conditions prevailing around the area results in health hazard problems to the people engaged in this cottage industry. Field survey results indicated that 57 % suffered from job-oriented disease like skin disease, blindness, headache, backbone pains and respiratory disease. Hence there arose the need to make them aware of the various health hazards, its causes and effects. The search for a strategy which enables to give them awareness regarding health education results in an awareness program through multimedia. This book is a report of the empirical study stated above. It gives a detail account of the design and development of the 'Health Literacy Package' and its implementation on the women engaged in coir retting. I hope the book is a ready reference for multimedia developers as well as for social activists who could use multimedia technology for social changes.

Dr. Divya C. Senan is currently working as Assistant Professor, Sree Narayana Training College, University of Kerala, India with research interests in curricular, sociological and technological fields. She holds Master's degree both in Physics and Education. She holds a doctoral degree in Education with specialization in educational technology. She is a member of the editorial board of Gurujyothi: Research and Reflections, a referred biannual interdisciplinary journal. She has to her credit two internationally published books on Science Pedagogy. As an independent researcher she has contributed a chapter in a publication on Women Empowerment and has also published and presented several research papers. As an extension of her curricular activity she has completed two research projects of sociological importance which contributed to the rural society.