Environmental Situation in Some Selected Villages of Bangladesh

Health is multifactorial and influenced by nutritional, biological, chemical and psychological factors. It is quite true that environment has direct impact on those diseases that are the outcome of man's maladjustments to his environment. Often man is responsible for pollution of environment through urbanization, industrialization and other human activities. Improvement of environmental condition is one of the best ways to prevent some of the diseases prevailing in our country. The study was designed to explore the environmental situation of rural area of Bangladesh. The descriptive cross sectional study was conducted in purposively selected six villages of Dewanganj Upazila of Jamalpur district, Bangladesh during the period of January 2018 to February 2018. A total of 227 purposively selected women having at least one under five children were interviewed face to face using a semi-structured questionnaire. Mean±SD age of the respondents was 27.31±6.4 years. About three fourth (167, 73.57%) of the respondents were literate while one fourth (60, 26.43%) of them were illiterate. On the other hand about two third (149, 65.64%) of husbands were literate and remaining (78, 34.36%) were illiterate. The most (215, 94.71%) of the respondents were housewives. Majority (143, 62.99%) of them had children of less than 3 and mean±SD age of children was 2.85±1.17 years. Majority (140, 61.67%) of the respondents belonged to nuclear family while 86 (37.89%) belonged to joint family. Mean±SD family member was 6.42±8.12 persons. The mean monthly family income was BDT 8066.52 with a standard deviation of BDT. 6767.12. Out of 277 respondents, almost half 110(48.46%) of them lived in mixed houses followed by 92(40.53%) and 25(11.01%) lived in Kantcha & Pucca houses respectively. The most (180, 79.30%) of the respondents were used separate kitchen in their houses. About two forth (171, 75.33%) of the respondents did not have any kitchen garden. All 227(100.0%) of the respondents were used tube well as source of drinking water. The most (211, 92.95%) of the respondents got supply water within their compounds. All of the respondents got water supply within 15 minute walking distance. Majority 149(65.64%) of the respondents used sanitary toilets & 40(17.62%) used pit latrines and rest 30(13.22%) of them practiced open air disposal. More than half (118, 51.99%) of the respondents' children were not using toilets for excreta disposal. Efforts are needed to increase environmental health related knowledge and awareness to maintain environment sanitation. People should use sanitary latrines and avoid practice of open air disposal of children's feces to prevent excreta borne diseases. Further wider scale details study is needed to formulate policy in regards to improve the environmental sanitation of Bangladesh.