Acute health effects of the Tasman Spirit oil spill on residents of Karachi, Pakistan

BMC Public Health

Table 1 Selected characteristics, medical history and beliefs of study participants according to exposure category for health effect of oil spill in Karachi, Pakistan 2003

Variables	Exposed group		Control group A		Control group B
	n	%	n	%	n	%	P ^a
Total	216	100	83	100	101	100
Gender
Female	123	57	50	60	52	52	0.47
Male	93	43	33	40	49	48
Age group (years)
15–30	95	44	20	24	64	63	<0.001
31–50	87	40	26	31	27	27
>50	34	16	37	45	10	10
Mean (SD)	35.5 (14.3)		45.5 (16.4)		31.2 (13.3)		<0.001
Education (years)
0	38	18	10	12	6	6	0.05
1–10	47	22	18	22	13	13
11–12	44	20	17	21	23	23
13–14	48	22	19	23	32	32
>14	39	18	19	23	27	27
Mean (SD)	10.3 (5.5)		12.7 (3.8)		11.0 (5.1)		<0.001
Employment status
Housewife	88	40.7	35	42.2	13	12.9	<0.001
Student	28	13.0	8	9.6	26	25.7
Employed	100	46.3	40	48.2	62	61.4
House on main road
Yes	115	53	18	22	18	18	<0.001
No	101	47	65	78	83	82
Smoking
Yes	36	17	12	14	14	14	0.78
No	180	83	71	86	87	86
Passive smoking
Yes	46	21	15	18	17	17	0.60
No	170	79	68	82	84	83
Allergy to chemicals
Yes	59	27	22	26	17	17	0.12
No	157	73	61	74	84	83
Allergy to dust
Yes	78	36	32	39	26	26	0.12
No	138	64	51	61	75	74
Allergy to pollen
Yes	16	7	6	7	0	0	_
No	200	93	77	93	101	100
Ever had wheezing
Yes	18	8	9	11	5	5	0.33
No	198	92	74	89	96	95
Ever had wheezing with shortness of breath
Yes	13	6	6	7	3	3	0.40
No	203	94	77	93	98	97
Belief that oil fumes can cause illness
Yes	195	90	69	83	94	93	0.28
No	15	7	10	12	5	5
Don't know	6	3	4	5	2	2
Worried about effect of oil spill on health
Yes	168	78	44	53	24	24	<0.001
No	48	22	39	47	77	76
Fumes have affected health
Yes	175	81	19	23	3	3	<0.001
No	41	19	64	77	98	97
Mean number of ill household members (SD)	2.5 (2.2)		0.9 (1.9)		0.3 (0.8)		<0.001

^a P, chi-square test comparing proportion between the groups or ANOVA (F test) comparing the means between the groups.

ISSN: 1471-2458