Abstract:
In this thesis, the relationship between air pollution and human health has been investigated
utilizing Geographic Information System (GIS) as an analysis tool. The research focus on how
cement dust affects human health. The main objective of this study was to analyse the spatial
variability of pollutants. The degradation of air quality is a major environmental problem that
affects many surrounding regions of industrial sites, exposure to gaseous pollutants: CO, SO2,
CO2, NOx, SOx, Gaseous Hg, Gaseous F and particulate matters: RSPM, SPM, particulate Hg,
etc. cause severe health effect such as cardiovascular disease, respiratory disease,
cardiopulmonary mortality. A correlation test was performed to establish the relationship
between air pollution and respiratory disease health records, both primary and secondary data sets
which was used as dependent and independent variables. Comparison with WHO and FEPA
standards was carried out. There was a significant positive correlation between variables of
pollutant measured using Ordinary Least Square (OLS). Results show high prevalence of
respiratory diseases of wards at proximity to the cement industry with the values of
0.161938mg/m3, 0.008332mg/m3 and 0.070943mg/m3 for CO, CO2 and SO2 respectively. There
is significant increase in various diseases particularly respiratory problems both in workers as
well as in the residents and there is need to take specific measures so that development may not
be at the cost of human lives
