Self-reported symptoms of ocular allergy and its comorbid factors among residents living near a landfill site in Ghana

ABSTRACT

Residents close to landfill sites may be exposed to long-term emitted toxic compounds that may have effects on their eyes. The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of symptomatic ocular allergy and its comorbid factors among residents living near a landfill site in Ghana. An exploratory cross-sectional design involving 400 inhabitants living around a landfill site was employed. The prevalence of symptomatic ocular allergy was 59.3%. In a bivariate analysis, comorbid conditions including respiratory disease, coughing, flu, cholera, skin disease, diarrhoea, and hypertension predicted symptomatic ocular allergy. However, only cholera remained a significant predictor of symptomatic ocular allergy in the multivariate analysis. Symptomatic ocular allergy was high among inhabitants around the landfill site in Ghana. While proper design and management of landfills in Ghana is crucial, further longitudinal and clinical studies are required to clinically establish the link between landfill and ocular allergy.

KEYWORDS:

• Symptomatic ocular allergies
• comorbidities
• landfill
• Ghana

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge our study participants for providing the study data and the authors and publishers whose works were consulted.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Authors’ contributions

PP-Conceptualization, data curation, investigation, methodology, project administration, resources, validation, visualization and writing-original draft

MAK-Data curation, formal analysis, methodology, validation, and writing-original draft

KA-Formal analysis, methodology, software, and validation

WA-D- Methodology, supervision, validation, and writing-review and editing

AKM and AAG­- Data curation, validation and writing-review and editing

Ethics approval and consent to participate

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards. The Committee on Human Research Publication and Ethics (CHRPE), School of Medical Sciences, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology and Komfo Anokye Teaching Hospital, Kumasi, Ghana provided ethical clearance for the study. Informed written and verbal consents were obtained from the study participants before data were collected. The procedures and protocol of the study was conducted according to the tenets of declaration of Helsinki. The study participants were also assured of strict confidentiality and anonymity of the data they provided.

Additional information

Funding

This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.