ABSTRACT
Background: As there is some improvement in sanitary latrine use and safe disposal of child faeces which is the one of the important goal of millennium development goals, awareness, practice and lack of community and household sanitary latrines is still a major problem. The objective was to study awareness and practice about use of sanitary latrine in villages.Methods: The study was undertaken to assess the knowledge, attitude and practice in rural villages of Kalaburagi District, Karnataka, India. The study sample consist a total of 500 participants.Results: The prevalence of usage of sanitary latrines was 40%. The prevalence of open air defecation in the study was 97.4%. There was significant association between belief, low standard of living and open air defecation.Conclusions: To overcome the underutilization problem of sanitary latrines in rural areas is to provide quality household and community sanitary latrines along with the provision for creating awareness among the population regarding the benefit of using sanitary latrine.
ABSTRACT
Background: The purposes of sanitation are to provide a healthy living environment for everyone, to protect the natural resources such as surface water, ground water, soil and to provide safety; security and dignity for people when they urinate or defecate. Effective sanitation system provide barrier between excreta and humans in such a way as to break the disease transmission cycle. The study was conducted to explore the level of knowledge and practices of primary school children regarding use of sanitary latrine.Methods: A cross sectional survey was carried out among 372 children in 4 selected primary schools. Data were collected using questionnaires regarding socio-demographic characteristics of children, their knowledge and practices of using sanitary latrine.Results: Study results showed majority of the students (84.9%) heard the name of sanitary latrine and 15.1% students didn’t. The study showed that about 80.1% students had pucca/water seal latrine and 18.8% students had kantcha latrine in their houses. It was found that almost all students (98.4%) use sanitary latrine and only 1.6% didn’t. It was also found that about 98.9% students use soap after defecation and 1.1% use only water.Conclusions: The result shows that majority of the students heard the name of sanitary latrine and almost all students use sanitary latrine. So the knowledge and practices regarding use of sanitary latrine of primary school children is satisfactory.
ABSTRACT
Background: Open air defecation can be defined as the excretion of human excreta in open places such as park, roadside, vegetable patch, agricultural fields and railway track other than toilets. Open air defecation may leads to various health problems such as soil pollution, water pollution, contamination of foods and propagation of flies. Nearly 74% of India’s population live in rural areas and the majority of them “go to the fields” for defecation and thereby pollute the environment with human excreta. The aims and objectives of the study were to find the association between defecation practices and socio-demographic variables; to assess the prevalence of hook-worm infestation and anemia among them.Methods: A cross sectional study was conducted. Sample size was 550 and simple random sampling. Chi-square test was applied.Results: The prevalence of open air defecation was 441 (80.2%). 270 (61.2%), 171 (38.8%) were males and females; 23.3% were habit of hand washing with soap after toilet. 87 (19.7%), 63 (14.3%), 43 (9.7%) were found to be having hook worm, round worm, and pin worm infestation in the stool examination. 32 (35.5%), 21 (23.3%), 37 (41.1%) were having severe anemia, moderate anemia, and mild anemia.Conclusions: 335 (60.9%), 106 (19.3%) people were going for open air defecation and inspite of having toilet at home. 226 (51.2%) belong to lower socio economic class. The association between socio demographic profile and open air defecation was significant (?2=0.02, p<0.05).
ABSTRACT
Background: In many areas of the world, including India, open defecation still remains the predominant norm and poses one of the biggest threats to the health of the people particularly in rural areas.Objectives were to study the prevalence and socio-cultural determinants of open defecation in rural area of Perambalur district.Methods: The present cross-sectional was done in a three randomly selected villages falling under rural field practice area of Department of Community Medicine of Dhanalakshmi Srinivasan Medical College and Hospital in Perambalur district (Tamil Nadu). Data was collected on 330 houses using pre-tested interview schedule developed using SBM-G questionnaire/schedule for ODF verification for household surveys which was modified for present study. Statistical analysis was done using Epi Info version 7 software.Results: Most (89.1%) of the study participants were above 30 years of age. Majority of respondents (39.4%) were illiterate. Prevalence of open defecation was 78.8%. Only 70 (21.2%) houses were using household sanitary latrines. Various reasons reported for open defecation were unawareness about availability of public latrine (41.5%), inadequate water (15.3%), insufficient space for latrine construction (16.9%), inadequate money (10%), considering open defecation better (16.6%) and caste based discrimination (0.4%). The study found sex, education and occupation of head of family to be significantly associated with open defecation.Conclusions: This study highlights the need for implementation well planned behavior change communication strategy to stop the menace of open defecation.