A UWC PhD graduate has carefully scrutinised Cape Town taxi drivers’ health and food choices for his research and found that their eating habits could cause sickness.
Machoene Derrick Sekgala has now completed his Doctor of Philosophy in Public Health at the School of Public Health, Faculty of Community and Health Sciences.
In his research, he focused on metabolic syndrome (MetS) which is a variety of health conditions that occur together and, in so doing, increase the risk of a stroke, heart disease and Type 2 diabetes. The conditions include increased blood pressure, high blood sugar, excess body fat around the waist, and abnormal cholesterol or triglyceride levels.
In his research, Sekgala concludes that of the 235 taxi drivers surveyed from Athlone, Mowbray, Kaap and back to the Bellville taxi rank, 73.5% eat takeaway food including pizza, burgers, chicken and fish parcels daily.
Sekgala said: “These results are corroborated by both national and international literature that shows that individuals who are in the long-duration driving occupation, including taxi drivers, have a high likelihood of developing metabolic disorders compared to other professionals such as industrial and office workers. In addition, these studies also identified age, driving duration, and driving experience as factors that accelerate the onset of these metabolic diseases.
“Among these important determinants of MetS, we showed that socio-demographic factors such as age and high experience in taxi driving are significantly associated with MetS risk and its components. Moreover, lifestyle factors such as fewer sleeping hours, smoking many cigarettes each day, alcohol, sugar sweetened beverages, spending a lot of money on street food, and being sedentary impacted the minibus taxi drivers’ metabolic health. These results have significant public health implications, as policymakers need to adopt evidence-based strategies to encourage a healthy lifestyle among South African men, especially minibus taxi drivers.”
Sekgala admitted that there were challenges when interviewing the taxi drivers as the majority did not understand the process of academic research or its value.
“When you approach them and explain you’re doing your research, you are really speaking a foreign language to them. What was interesting, though, is that even though they could not understand research, they were very interested in knowing their health status,” he said.
Sekgala’s research became health check-ups for drivers.
“The other component of my research was for referral. When I conduct the data collection or during the measurement, especially the higher blood pressure and the sugar diabetes, and I find the abnormal values, I will give them referral letters and then they go to see a doctor for further investigations,” he said.
Makhosandile Tumana, the public relations officer at Santaco Western Cape, said while he was concerned with the findings of the research, issues like high blood pressure were not solely exclusive to the taxi fraternity.
“The biggest challenge we are facing is the lack of resources. Government could assist us in health testing our drivers to ensure they have good health,” he said.