The prevalence of musculoskeletal disorders among prawn seed collectors of Sunderbans.

In India, particularly in Sunderban of West Bengal, collection of prawn seeds is one of the major earning resources among prawn seed collectors. They are compelled to carry out a considerable amount of hard, manual, rigorous tasks in the river of the Sunderban area for collecting prawn seeds. They have to adopt some undesirable postures that may lead to the development of musculo skeletal disorder (MSD). The main aim of the present study is to investigate the prevalent postures adopted by the prawn seed collectors during individual prawn seed collection and to analyze the causation of discomfort feeling related with those postures. For this study, 21 male and 25 female prawn seed collectors were selected randomly and a detailed posture analysis was performed among them by means of OWAS method. It was observed that these workers worked continuously in awkward postures during certain prawn seed collection activity and consequently they suffered from discomfort feeling (pain) in different parts of the body.