The benefits of educating children in 3rd world countries about proper hygiene
Running Head: Hygiene in 3rd World Countries
The benefits of educating children in 3rd world countries about proper hygiene
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Introduction
Hygiene is generally referred to as a set of activities or practices that are related to the preservation of health and maintaining a healthy living. Third world nations have experienced the bulk of diseases resulting from unhygienic conditions overtime (Schiavo, 2007). For example, it is estimated that a third of 1.7 million world-wide deaths resulting from unsafe water and sanitation occur in Sub-Saharan Africa, with women and children forming the bulk of the most affected (Schiavo, 2007). The concept of hygiene is associated with medicine, personal, and professional care exercises linked to the most aspects of the daily living. Hygienic exercises are taken as measures of preventing and reducing on the incidence of diseases being spread in both medicine and at home or in the daily life settings. In fact, in the production of food stuff, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics, proper hygiene is the major part of quality assurance. For instance, taking the necessary precautions during production by ensuring they comply with microbial specifications that are correct for it to be consumed. The means to achieve proper hygiene is through cleaning activities like hand washing. In other words, hygiene is mainly those practices performed in order to prevent the spread of organisms or bacterial causing or leading to diseases. Therefore, cleaning exercises eliminates microbes that are infectious in human body. Basically, hygiene is used as away of promoting and preserving health of people (Schiavo, 2007). Domestic hygiene involves hygienic practices that aim at preventing diseases and spreading of diseases in both homes and public places such as public transport, place of work, and other social set ups.
The need to educate children in the 3rd world countries on the importance of proper health practices is very vital in preventing the spread of infectious diseases. Children need to be educated on proper domestic and daily hygiene because they are the major victims of these infectious diseases resulting from poor hygiene. Furthermore, hygiene in our daily lives plays a vital role in reducing the spread of infectious diseases. Therefore, proper hygiene is a healthy issue because it helps in disease prevention through breaking up the chain that leads to transmission of diseases. The major sources of infection at home are people who get infected through food stuff especially raw foods, water, and domestic animals such as pets. When all these situations are combined together, people get affected either directly or indirectly. The main means of spreading of germs in homes is through hands, food, utensil cleaning, and clothe washing.
The agent/host/environment factors involved in proper hygiene
The gents of infections can be divided into various categories such as biological agents, which involve the infectious organisms like bacteria and virus as well as vaccines, antibiotics, and food. Chemical agent consists of chemical toxins like lead and dust that cause either acute or chronic diseases. The environment influences the probability and circumstances of contact between the host and the agent. For example poor sanitation at homes exposes people and particularly children to infectious diseases such as diarrhea. This is known to be more rampant in developing countries. In addition, environment includes social, political, and economic factors, which are known to be serious determinant of health and hygiene. For instance, crowded homes and school institutions can expose people to diseases such as measles, cholera and other infectious diseases, while the political structure and economic health of a community partly determines the health status of members of that community. Diseases such as pneumonia and accidental injuries are common among children in third world nations. For instance, improper housing leads to congestion; and lack of proper ventilations instigate the growth of fungi associated with pneumonia. Therefore, educating children particularly from the third world countries will create awareness on matters of health and hygiene (Seneca, 2007).
The role of communication in affecting a change or improving health
Health communication involves the learning and usage of communication techniques to educate and influence individual and community decisions that improve health. It connects the domains of communication and health, which is recognized as an important tool to promote individual and community health as a whole. The major role of communication in health is that it can contribute to all areas of disease prevention and health improvement. Effective communication in people especially in children assists in creating awareness of health risks occurring from poor hygiene, and solutions to those risks. Communication in health also increases motivation and skills required to eliminate health risks, assist in finding support from other individuals who are going through similar experiences, and affect or reinforce attitudes (Thompson, 2003). Health communication improves health through increasing demand for the right health services and reducing the demand for incorrect unhealthy services. Communication ensures that the available information helps in making the hard choices like choosing health programs, health care providers, and treatments.
In many incidences, major government organizations team up with particular community members to facilitate health communication and bring positive change (CDC, August 2009). Health communication in communities plays the role of influencing the public agenda, advocate for policies and health programs, increase positive changes in the socioeconomic and the environment, promote the delivery of public health and health care services, and motivate social norms that improve health and quality of life especially in children. For example, dental hygiene campaign dubbed “Brush Up on Health Teeth: Simple Steps for Kids Smile” is carried out by CDC in collaboration with other organizations in developing nations around the world (CDC, August 2009). Health communication leads to enhancement of collaborative relationships when all people are capable of having good communication. In order to achieve the objective of educating children on proper hygiene, good communication will have to be adopted so as to make changes in the social climate and motivate healthy behaviors though creating awareness, and changing attitudes.
Audience benefiting from communication on this issue
The target audiences benefiting from this campaign consist of patients and health care providers because knowledge, attitudes, skills, and behavior of both patients and health care providers contribute to antibiotic prescribing and antibiotic use. The majority of the audience involves parents of these young children from the developing countries because they are the major victims of this problem. It is well known that most of developing countries suffer more from poor hygiene because of poverty and lack of adequate facilities to use as a result of overpopulation (Hough, 2008). Lack of clean latrines in schools, overcrowding leading to spread of infectious diseases, and lack of enough skills and knowledge on the value of maintaining proper hygiene are the main barriers in hygienic living in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, and some South American countries. Children need to be educated on proper domestic and daily hygiene because they are the major victims of these infectious diseases resulting from poor hygiene. Furthermore, hygiene in our daily lives plays a vital role in reducing the spread of infectious diseases. Proper hygiene is a health issue that needs to be taught across the community at large in order to prevent diseases through breaking up the chain that leads to transmission of diseases. The main means of spreading of germs in homes is through hands, food, utensil cleaning, and clothe washing. Therefore, educating children on proper hygiene will enable them to have knowledge on how to take precaution when handling food and other things that may spread infections.
Type of communication
Interpersonal communication is the major type of communication that refers to the ability to associate with others in both verbal and non verbal communication. This type of communication is important especially on the issue of proper hygiene among the children because it promotes creation of good relationship with them hence ease of awareness creation on the given issue. Hygiene being a crucial issue of concern in developing countries, it cannot be ignored per se. It’s logical to state that educating developing countries’ children on the value of good hygiene is more worth the energy. Interpersonal communication in health involves face to face communication which promotes the openness of the health care providers to reach to each community educating them on the issues concerning hygiene.
Research based communication is another health communication that is basically grounded on research. Successfully, health communication programs are based on a true understanding not only of the intended audience but also of the situational environment. The main aim for health communication is that behavioral change is conditioned by the environment where people live as well as those who influence them. Such initiatives also need a multidisciplinary approach. Multidisciplinary health communication recognizes the complexity of attaining behavioral and social change and uses a multifaceted approach that is grounded in the application of various theoretical frameworks and disciplines consisting of health education (Hough, 2008).
Impacts of proper hygiene
Personal hygiene promotes both physical and emotional health by making the person to feel relaxed and cared for. Proper hygiene habits such as cleaning of hand and brushing promotes a healthy living in everyone’s daily lives. It’s common knowledge that the best way to a healthy living is through proper hygiene. By doing this, chances of falling sick or acquiring infectious diseases are reduced or eliminated. Therefore, maintaining proper hygiene is very important to all people because it helps a lot in preventing diseases, and as it is known prevention is always better than cure. This issue impacts all people, however, children from the third world countries are the most affected due to high rate of vulnerability. Therefore, more efforts need to be put in the process so that these children can be educated on the value of having proper hygiene (Carter, 2007).
Conclusion
Hygiene in 3rd World Nations has been cited as a major factor in the overall health status of the people. Children in these countries are the most vulnerable group. The concept of hygiene is associated with medicine, personal health, and professional care exercises linked to most aspects of the daily living. Hygienic exercises are taken as measures of preventing and reducing on the incidences of diseases being spread. In fact, in the production of food stuff, pharmaceutical, and cosmetics, proper hygiene is the major part of quality assurance. For instance, taking the necessary precautions on the products produced by ensuring they comply with microbial specifications that are correct for it to be consumed. The means to achieve proper hygiene is through cleaning activities like hand washing. In other words, hygienic practices are mainly those practices performed in order to prevent the spread of organisms or bacterial causing or leading to diseases. Basically, hygiene is used as away of promoting and preserving health of human beings. Domestic hygiene involves hygiene practices that aim at preventing diseases and spreading of diseases in both homes as well as in the social organizations like public transport, place of work, and other social set ups. Infectious diseases are spread through various agents like water, food stuff, and clothing. The children from the third world countries were the right audience for this topic because they are the less fortunate due to many factors associated with economic, political and social factors.
Health communication in communities plays the role of influencing the public agenda, advocate for policies and health programs, increase positive changes in the socioeconomic and the environment, promote the delivery of public health and health care services, and motivate social norms that improve health and quality of life especially in children. Health communication leads to enhancement of collaborative relationships when all people are capable of having good communication. In order to achieve the objective of educating children on proper hygiene, good communication will have to be adopted so as to make changes in the social climate and motivate healthy behaviors though creating awareness, and changing attitudes.
Reference List
Carter, P. (2007). Lippincott's Textbook for Nursing Assistants: A Humanistic Approach to
Care giving. New York: Williams and Wilkins.
CDC. (August 2009). Health Marketing in Action. Retrieved on 15 November 2010, from
http://www.cdc.gov/healthmarketing/hminaction.htm#campaigns
Hough, T. (2008). Elements of Hygiene and Sanitation. Canada: BiblioBazaar, LLC.
Thompson, T. (2003). Handbook of health communication. New York: Routledge.
Seneca, E. (2007). A manual of hygiene and sanitation. Michigan: Lea and Febiger.
Schiavo, R. (2007). Health marketing and communication: from theory to practices: New York:
John Wiley & Sons.
