School-based Interventions to Promote Personal and Environmental Hygiene Among Children in Pakistan: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study

Background:

Globally, communicable diseases are prevalent among school age children and the exposure to variety of pathogens causing preventable diseases in school population is inevitable. Underlying factors mainly rests on poor personal hygiene and inadequate sanitation practices leading to school absenteeism and life threatening illnesses among children (if continually neglected in the long run). The situation is worse in low and middle income countries due to inadequate health care facilities leading to compromised health status of school children.

Among communicable diseases, respiratory infections and diarrheal diseases are regarded as the deadliest killers of young children. Incidence of diarrheal disease in the initial years has been linked with impaired cognitive performance in the later childhood. In addition, in developing countries intestinal helminthic infection is a commonly cited problem among school-age children. Furthermore, oral health cavity infections are also commonly found in school going children worldwide. Frequent attacks of infection predispose young children to malnutrition and can form a vicious circle and retard children's physical and cognitive development. Moreover, the contextual factors such as poor socio-economic environment further deteriorate the health status of school children especially in low and middle income countries.

In the Pakistani context, alongside pneumonia and diarrhea worm infestation and scabies among school age children are the commonly reported health issues; manifesting poor personal hygiene. An evaluation study on water, sanitation and hygiene intervention on school child performance in two cities showed that almost 48% of government school children avoid going to school toilets due to poor sanitary condition. In local context, studies are mostly focused on oral hygiene assessment among children, showing satisfactory knowledge about using tooth paste. Comprehensive assessment about personal and environmental hygiene assessment among children, teachers and parents has remained a gap. Poor knowledge and practice of, and attitudes to personal hygiene have negative consequences on their long term development. This necessitates the designing and testing of school-based interventions aiming to improve hygiene behaviors among children, thereby minimizing their potential to capture preventable illnesses.

It is unfortunate that school health remains a neglected aspect of public health in Pakistan. In 2005, School Health Program was launched in 17 districts of the country by Ministry of Education, Pakistan in collaboration with United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). The program focused on various components including personal hygiene and environmental education but its impact was not determined . To the best of our knowledge, there is paucity of studies in Pakistan on school-based interventions to promote personal and environmental hygiene of school children, with child's parents and teachers' involvement. Towards designing school based programs, role of parents and teachers must be considered as they are the important role models for school going age children. And thus had detrimental effects in shaping children's overall health and hygiene behavior.