The study aimed to determine the prevalence of self-reported injuries, skin and respiratory health problems and related factors among waste collectors in Mbeya City Council. A cross-sectional design was used in this study, where 100 respondents highly exposed and 100 not exposed to hazards were recruited. Structured questionnaire was used to collect data for the study. SPSS software was used for analysis from which descriptive analysis and cross tabulation with Chi-square test was used to compare the prevalence of health problems and factors for exposure to health problems between the two working groups. Results show that there was 77.4% of respondents reported injuries for refuse handling and 8.5% from non-refuse handling staff with statistical different (p=0.03). More than three quarters (78.5%) of refuse handlers reported skin health problems while only 2% of skin health problems reported from non-refuse handlers. The two proportions were statistically different (p=0.02). In addition, majority (90.1%) of refuse handlers reported respiratory health problems whereas only 23.6% of non-refuse handling staff reported respiratory health problems. The proportions were significantly different (p=0.01). The difference between the two proportions suggests that refuse handling had significant contribution for Injuries, skin health problems and respiratory health problems occurrence reported. All the associations were established at the statistical significance calculated at p<0.05. The rest of exposure variables due to refuse handling had insignificant influence on the selected health outcomes. In the insignificantly associated variables the p-values were greater than 0.05. There was significantly high prevalence of about 82% injuries, skin health problems and respiratory health problems among refuse handlers as it was compared to 11.4% for non-refuse handling staff. To overcome the problems there should be adequate supply of PPEs to all refuse handlers, training on the proper use of the refuse handling tools; personal hygiene as well as close health monitoring. Further studies, to explore in-depth on the diseases associated with refuse handling activities

PREVALENCE OF SKIN AND RESPIRATO RY HEALTH PROBLEMS BETWEEN SOLID WASTE COLLECTORS AND NON-SOLID WASTE COLLECTORS IN MBEYA CITY COUNCIL By Charles Bahati Mtatifikolo A Dissertation Submitted to the School of Public Administration and Management in Partial/Fulfilment of the Requirements for the award of Master of Research and Public Policy (MRPP) of Mzumbe University