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Abdiwahab Abdi Jama (Nakaruma),
Regional Public Health Officer
Hygiene education is an important aspect of community health
promotion. An important work of environmental sanitation personnel is
to provide to communities the knowledge of what makes and keeps
people healthy and why they become sick. People stay healthy or sick
as a result of their own actions and behaviors. Therefore, people
need to understand and analyze the root causes of the health problems
facing them, and be able to take the necessary actions to reduce or
prevent those community health problems. In most developing
countries, like Somaliland, mortality and morbidity predominantly
result form poor sanitation, contaminated water, inadequate hygiene
practices and harmful behavior or action. These diseases are called
water and sanitation-related diseases, and are generally referred to
as, the notorious diseases of filth (dirt). Such diseases include:
Cholera, dysentery, Typhoid, Hepatitis, Worm Infestation, Skin and
Eye Infections.
Hygiene education is a comprehensive process directed towards
developing behavior change and provoking community action for the
prevention of ill-health and the promotion of positive hygiene
practices. Hygiene education employs a variety of methods for
interacting and communicating with people, so as to provide the
required knowledge and skills that are translated into actions that
support health-sustaining habits/norms and by changing or modifying
negative (harmful) behavior and practices. It aims to bring
heightened awareness of the public, so each member of the community
minds his/her own health and also that of others.
Hygiene education enhances:
Environmental sanitation as preventing measures against communicable
diseases/ oro-faecal disease out breaks in the community.
Development of health-sustaining habits (lifestyles) through
individual and collective action.
Empowers people to take responsibilities and activities that are
conductive to better health and well-being.
Choose processed for Safety
While many foods, such as fruits and vegetables, are best in their
natural state, others simply are not safe unless they have been
processed. For example, always buy pasteurized as opposed to raw milk
and, if you have the choice, select fresh or frozen poultry treated
with ionizing radiation. When shopping, keep in mind that food
processing was invented to improve safety as well as to prolong
shelf-life. Certain foods eaten raw, such as lettuce, need thorough
washing.
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