Abstract:
Introduction: Water pollution is a one of the public health burdens and the consumption of contaminated water has adverse health effects and even affects fetal development. The objective was to describe the household water usage pattern, community awareness of water pollution and factors associated with it among adult residents in MOH area, Uduvil.
Method: A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted on a community-based sample of 817 adult residents with multi stage cluster sampling method. The data was collected by an int erviewer adm inistered questi onnaire. Statistically significance for selected factors and awareness were analyzed with chi square and Mann-Whitney U test.
Results: This study sample consisted of 85% (n=695) female, mean age of 47.8±16.2. Majority 97.5% (n=797) of the participants knew about the water pollution in their area. Only 23% (n=188) participants knew about all the characters of good water. Among the participants 48.6% (n=397) had noticed the organoleptic changes in their own well and only 1.5% (n=12) had confirmed the pollution by lab test. Among them 71.2% (n=582) were treating the water and 24.9% were boiling the water. The median knowledge score was 10.93. There is significant difference in knowledge related to water pollution among different educational levels (U=53339.5, p<0.001) and the presence of water related diseases in the family (U=54146.5, P<0.01). There was a significant association with the age groups and their water treatment practices (χ2= 7.17, P<0.01), the presence of under 5-year age child in the family had significant association with water treatment practices (χ2=13.1, P<0.001).
