Empowerment of Local Government Organization to Monitor Food and Water Sanitation for Diarrhea Prevention in the 10Th Public Health Region, Thailand

Abstract

This action research aimd to empower local government organizations to monitor food and water sanitation for diarrheal disease prevention in the 10th Public Health Region by conducting of Appreciation Influence Control (A-I-C) process. The samples were local administrative organization administrators, community leaders, housewife group presidents, village health volunteers, and practitioners related to the sanitation of food and water management in local government organizations and public health agencies, altogether 50 persons. The samples were selected from the districts that had highest rate of diarrhea in each province. Tools used in this research were survey form, knowledge quiz, and observation record form. The quantitative data were analyzed by statistic, percentage, mean, standard deviation; and qualitative data were analyzed by content analysis. The results found that the samples had a statistically significant increase in knowledge of diarrhea after the empowerment process (p<0.001, 95% CI=0.422 to 1.343). In addition, the planning meeting using the AIC process had resulted in the development of 6 projects for diarrhea prevention. The following up and taking lessons had found that all aforementioned projects could be implemented from budget support of the local government organizations. The success factors in the operation were (1) the local government organizations and people had acknowledged the situation of diarrhea in their area; (2) the community had involved in determining the desirable image and target as well as setting up their own solutions; (3) technical support from the agencies and mentoring visits had built confidence in the communities. These resulted in awareness and cooperation in monitoring of food and water sanitation, leading to the reduction of diarrheal diseases.