STUDY OF SUBJECTIVE WELLBEING OF ADULT POPULATION IN ARSENIC CONTAMINATED RURAL AREAS OF WEST BENGALPALLABI PATTNAIKAbstract Ground water arsenic contamination is a major environmental challenge in West Bengal. Arsenic concentration in drinking water of the studied location was estimated by using Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometer (AAS). Arsenic concentration in all the sampled community deep tube wells used as drinking water sources were above the permissible limit of 0.01 mg/L. In Basirhat-1 block, the range of Arsenic concentration was found to be 0.0223 to 0.0960 mg/L with mean and standard deviation being 0.06 and 0.0192, respectively. In Habra-1 block, the range of Arsenic concentration was found to be 0.0215 to 0.0723 mg/L with mean and standard deviation being 0.0403 and 0.0154 respectively. WHO -5 wellbeing index questionnaire in Likert scale was used for measurement of subjective Wellbeing of adult persons who are continuously drinking arsenic contaminated water for ten years were measured from the contaminated sources. Multivariate binary logistic regression, Chi-square test and t-test were carried out by using SPSS. Age, marital status, occupation, gender, education, chronic disease, health expenditure and Arsenic concentration showed significant difference with Wellbeing. Significant mean difference was found between health expenditure and arsenic concentration (p=0.004, t=-2.902, F=12.684). Respondents who were drinking arsenic contaminated water greater than 50 ppb were more likely to report a low level of Wellbeing than the respondents drinking arsenic contaminated water within 10 to 50 ppb (OR=14.487.95% CI(8.065-26.022) p=0.000 ). |