ABSTRACT

Background; Pakistan is one of the most urbanized country in South Asia. Its second-largest and polluted city is Lahore, growth rate of which is 4% per annum. Urban areas are frankly covered by smog in Asia and Lahore is also effected one. Lahore has been covered by heavy smog, wrapping the whole city and causing harm on lives of people.

Aim: To determine the frequency of use of face masks among population during smog at Lahore.

Methodology: Descriptive case series study was conducted at Lahore from 1st October 2019 to 31st March 2020. After taking informed consent, 390 subjects of 10 years or more from both sexes were included. 238 male and 152 female subjects were selected after convenient sampling. The data were entered and analyzed by SPSS vr 24.

Results: in this study 390 subjects participated, 238(61.03%) males and 152(38.97%) females.It was observed that 172(44.10%) participants in this study used facemasks but 218(55.90%) participants did not use facemasks during smog at Lahore. It was also observed that 111(46.64%) males and 61(40.13%) females used facemasks whereas 127(53.36%) males and 91(59.86%) females did not use facemasks during smog.

Conclusion: The tendency of use of facemasks among population of Lahore during smog was less than 50%. Majority of users belonged to young age group. Males were more prone to use facemasks as compared to females because males are more involved in outdoor activities.

Keywords: Blanket, Polluted, shrouding, urbanized, Wrapping