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Sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of Northern rural Vietnam

BACKGROUND: In Vietnam, efforts are underway to improve latrine use in rural and remote areas with particular focus on increasing coverage of sanitation in schools. However, there is a lack of information on how the school program affects latrine use by schoolchildren and at community level. This pa...

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Autores principales: Xuan, Le thi Thanh, Hoat, Luu Ngoc, Rheinländer, Thilde, Dalsgaard, Anders, Konradsen, Flemming
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2012
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3305623/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22353490
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-140
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author Xuan, Le thi Thanh
Hoat, Luu Ngoc
Rheinländer, Thilde
Dalsgaard, Anders
Konradsen, Flemming
author_facet Xuan, Le thi Thanh
Hoat, Luu Ngoc
Rheinländer, Thilde
Dalsgaard, Anders
Konradsen, Flemming
author_sort Xuan, Le thi Thanh
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In Vietnam, efforts are underway to improve latrine use in rural and remote areas with particular focus on increasing coverage of sanitation in schools. However, there is a lack of information on how the school program affects latrine use by schoolchildren and at community level. This paper analyzes sanitation use among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area to inform future school-based sanitation promotion programmes. METHODS: A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was applied during a 5 months period in six primary and secondary schools and in the homes of schoolchildren in four different ethnic villages in Northern rural Vietnam. Using a structured questionnaire, 319 children were interviewed face-to-face to collect quantitative data. Qualitative methods included extensive observations at schools and in the homes of 20 children, a single day's diary writings of 234 children, in-depth interviews with children (20), their parents (20) and school staff (10), and focus group discussions with parents (4) and teachers (6), and picture drawing with children (12). RESULTS: All surveyed schools had student latrines. However, the observed schoolchildren most commonly urinated and defecated in the open. Main barriers for latrine use included inadequate number of latrines, limited accessibility to latrines, lack of constant water supply in latrines and lack of latrine maintenance by school management. Programs promoting latrine use for children were not conducted in either schools or communities and were not established as a preferred social norm in such settings. Children perceived existing school latrines as unappealing and expressed a wish to have basic, functional, clean, and colorful school latrines with privacy. CONCLUSIONS: The paper shows that the current school based sanitation promotion is insufficient to change sanitation behavior of school children irrespective of their ethnicity. It is important that schools, households and communities work more closely together to increase use and uptake of latrine use among schoolchildren. Also, the contractors of latrine facilities must work more closely with local school management when constructing latrines, including identifying location, design and appropriate systems of water supply. A separate budget needs to be allocated to allow the school to maintain the sanitation infrastructure and keep it hygienic and appealing for users.
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spelling pubmed-33056232012-03-16 Sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of Northern rural Vietnam Xuan, Le thi Thanh Hoat, Luu Ngoc Rheinländer, Thilde Dalsgaard, Anders Konradsen, Flemming BMC Public Health Research Article BACKGROUND: In Vietnam, efforts are underway to improve latrine use in rural and remote areas with particular focus on increasing coverage of sanitation in schools. However, there is a lack of information on how the school program affects latrine use by schoolchildren and at community level. This paper analyzes sanitation use among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area to inform future school-based sanitation promotion programmes. METHODS: A combination of quantitative and qualitative methods was applied during a 5 months period in six primary and secondary schools and in the homes of schoolchildren in four different ethnic villages in Northern rural Vietnam. Using a structured questionnaire, 319 children were interviewed face-to-face to collect quantitative data. Qualitative methods included extensive observations at schools and in the homes of 20 children, a single day's diary writings of 234 children, in-depth interviews with children (20), their parents (20) and school staff (10), and focus group discussions with parents (4) and teachers (6), and picture drawing with children (12). RESULTS: All surveyed schools had student latrines. However, the observed schoolchildren most commonly urinated and defecated in the open. Main barriers for latrine use included inadequate number of latrines, limited accessibility to latrines, lack of constant water supply in latrines and lack of latrine maintenance by school management. Programs promoting latrine use for children were not conducted in either schools or communities and were not established as a preferred social norm in such settings. Children perceived existing school latrines as unappealing and expressed a wish to have basic, functional, clean, and colorful school latrines with privacy. CONCLUSIONS: The paper shows that the current school based sanitation promotion is insufficient to change sanitation behavior of school children irrespective of their ethnicity. It is important that schools, households and communities work more closely together to increase use and uptake of latrine use among schoolchildren. Also, the contractors of latrine facilities must work more closely with local school management when constructing latrines, including identifying location, design and appropriate systems of water supply. A separate budget needs to be allocated to allow the school to maintain the sanitation infrastructure and keep it hygienic and appealing for users. BioMed Central 2012-02-21 /pmc/articles/PMC3305623/ /pubmed/22353490 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-140 Text en Copyright ©2012 Xuan et al; BioMed Central Ltd. http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Xuan, Le thi Thanh
Hoat, Luu Ngoc
Rheinländer, Thilde
Dalsgaard, Anders
Konradsen, Flemming
Sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of Northern rural Vietnam
title Sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of Northern rural Vietnam
title_full Sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of Northern rural Vietnam
title_fullStr Sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of Northern rural Vietnam
title_full_unstemmed Sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of Northern rural Vietnam
title_short Sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of Northern rural Vietnam
title_sort sanitation behavior among schoolchildren in a multi-ethnic area of northern rural vietnam
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3305623/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22353490
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2458-12-140
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