Assessment of Environmental Health and Safety of Urban Informal Sector Activities in Port Harcourt Metropolis Rivers State, Nigeria

The research focused on the assessment of health and safety of some selected urban informal sectors activities in Port Harcourt Metropolis in Rivers State. Small and micro operators from cassava mill, poultry farm, saloon, and restaurant and kiosk shop were the target population. Taro Yamane formula was applied to get the sample size of 400 respondents. The research deployed the cross sectional and descriptive method of data analysis. Questionnaire was structured as open-ended and concise questions using the established parameters to elicit accurate responses from operators. Study adopted probability and non-probability sampling techniques. Results revealed that there was no documented number of urban informal sectors operators in the study area, rather from the pilot study in the three designated locations were listed the different categories of urban informal sector operators to about 3,680 (three thousand six hundred and eighty small and medium urban informal sector operators.About196 respondents (50.5%) attested that there was no regulation (policy guide) that regulates their operations. More so, about 105 respondents which represent 27.0% attested that the method of reaching out to the urban informal sector operators was through use of smart phones. Recommendations of the study suggests an improved culture of health and safety of the people at the local communities to be top-most importance by the government bearing in mind the enormous contributions of the sector to the state and national economy. The basic safety and health precautionary methods should be made enforceable by the agencies in their activities. This would eventually lead to the decrease of the global outbreak of rising health and safety challenges from the sector.