Determinant Factors of Vitamin D Status of Female Factory Workers at Childbearing Age

Abstract

Female factory workers as a part of women of childbearing age need to get attention since they are susceptible to nutritional problems because of their physiological roles, giving birth and menstruation. Besides that, female factory workers, especially who work in garment industries are rarely exposed to sunlight. The workers work indoor so they are at risk of deficiency of vitamin D coming from sunlight. Research that has been done by Oemardi et al. (2007) on women who were 45-55 years old found the prevalence of vitamin D deficit was as many as 50%. The results of a study in Malaysia and Indonesia on women of childbearing age found the deficiency of this vitamin D in Indonesia was as many as 63% (Green et al. 2008). The objectives of this study were: 1. To identify the social economic characteristics of households of female factory workers. 2. To identify the contribution of female factory workers in household income. 3. To identify food habits and food consumption of female factory workers. 4. To measure intake of energy, protein, vitamin D and calcium of female factory workers and their nutritional status. 5. To identify sun exposure of female factory workers. 6. To analyze prevalence of deficiency vitamin D of female factory workers. 7. To analyze determinant factors of vitamin D status of female factory workers. This study used a cross sectional design and was conducted at PT Gunung Salak (garment factory) in Sukabumi, West Java. The population of the samples in this study was women of childbearing age who were 18 to 40 years old. Of the total 171 female factory workers in the sample frame, as many as 155 samples were selected by a simple random sampling method. At the end 154 samples were analyzed. dst ...