Environmental health literacy on the prevention of health effects from particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5) by village health volunteers (VHV) in eco industrial town under the 5th Health Region.

Abstract

This research aims at studying the environmental health literacy on the prevention of health effects from particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (PM2.5) by village health volunteers (VHV) in eco industrial town under the 5th Health Region. The sample group was 382 persons in Ratchaburi, Samut Sakhon and Nakhon Pathom. The data was gathered using the questionnaires from January to March 2020. The data analysis was made via descriptive statistics, t-test statistics, One-Way Analysis of Variance and Pearson Correlation. The study results showed that 1) the majority were female (79.6%), married (60.7%), aged 46-60 years (49.5%), completed elemenraty education (48.7%), had less than 10 years of VHV experiences (48.7%), lived in the community for 36-50 years (49.5%), were unemployed/worked as housewife or househusband/did houseworks (36.4%) and had no underlying diseases (55.3%). 2) had medium level of the environmental health literacy in (45.3%), and medium level of the preventive behaviors for health effects from particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter (41.4%). The comparison results showed that there were no differences of averages in the preventive behaviors for health effects from particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter in the different group of ages, genders and periods of time for living in the community but there were the differences in the different groupd of educational levels, underlying disease history and VHV experiences with the statistical significant level of 0.05 while the high positive relationship was found between the environmental health literacy and the preventive behaviors for health effects from particles less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter with the statistical significant level of 0.001 (r = 0.779). Therefore, the village health volunteers (VHV) should create the activities to debelop the correct knowledge and understanding about fine particles or PM2.5 in the community and support the activities to analyze and examine the PM2.5 problems while encouraging the VHV to develop their potential regularly and regulating the program content to develop the environmental health literacy and the health-effect preventive behaviors for the VHV in eco indusrial towns later on.