Environment,Ecology & Hygiene - Part 1

ENVIRONMENT,ECOLOGY& HYGIENE

PART 1

This first study session in the Module serves to introduce you to the important concepts and key terms that are used in environmental health and hygiene. Starting with a brief description of the historical importance of hygiene and sanitation, we will explain the scope of environmental health and describe the links between hygiene, sanitation and human health. We will describe the steps in environmental health planning and give you an overview of your role in the management of hygiene and environmental health at community level.

Hygiene and sanitation have a long history at various levels of human civilization. We can roughly divide the historical events into two periods: the ancient and the modern.

PREHISTORIC AND ANCIENT CIVILIZATION
•    Religious laws, such as Moses’ Law, writings in the Old and New Testaments and laws in the Koran, played major roles in the lives of ancient peoples.
•    These laws mainly concentrated on the provision of personal hygiene.
•    Dead bodies and contaminated surfaces were known to be unclean or unhygienic to touch.
•    The importance of burying human faeces was also strongly indicated.
•    The importance of body cleanliness before praying was a motive for maintaining the integrity of hygiene with a religious practice.
•    The importance of hygiene and sanitation flourished at the times of Greek, Roman and Egyptian civilization.
•    The use of private and public baths and latrines, cleaning of the body, shaving the head for protection from lice infestation, and the construction of water pipelines and sewage ditches were widely observed.
•    The transmission of schistosomiasis (bilharzia) was linked to bathing and swimming in the Nile River.
•    In these civilizations, the focus was on personal hygiene (hygiene) and human waste management (sanitation).

MODERN TIMES
•    A number of discoveries in the 19th century were important events for the understanding of communicable diseases.
•    For example, the link between contaminated water and cholera was discovered by John Snow in 1854; the importance of hygienic handwashing before attending delivery of a baby was noted by Dr. Semmelweis in 1845; and the discovery that microorganisms (very small organisms only visible under a microscope) cause disease was made by Louis Pasteur around this time.
•    The period following the industrial revolution in Europe in the 19th century showed that improvements in sanitation, water supply and housing significantly reduced the occurrence of communicable diseases.
•    The term ‘environmental health’ is used to describe human health in relation to environmental factors such as these.
•    Environmental health can be defined as the control of all the factors in a person’s physical environment that have, or can have, a damaging effect on their physical, mental or social wellbeing.
•    The issue of environmental health is now a global matter under the guidance of the United Nations (UN) through the World Health Organization.
•    Although hygiene and infection are vital factors in environmental health, it is also good to be aware of emerging issues such as global warming and the links between medical conditions such as cardio-vascular disease and our environment and lifestyles.
•    Our environment is everything that surrounds us. It includes all the external influences and conditions that can affect our health, life and growth.
•    These influences are constantly changing and the effects on our health may not be easily foreseen.

HYGIENE AND ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH DEVELOPMENT IN ETHIOPIA
Historical information about hygiene practice among the Ethiopian population is sparse. We will note only the organisational aspects, as follows.
•    A formal health service was organised in the Ministry of the Interior in 1908. Hygiene and sanitation in public health was a single service.
•    The Ministry of the Interior had a Proclamation and Legal Notices to exercise sanitation (urine handling, refuse and excreta management, street sweeping) in 1942–1943.
•    The Ministry of Public Health was created in 1947. It organised Municipal and Provincial Public Health services to run both curative and public health. Hygiene and sanitation were the focus of these organisations.
•    Late in the 1970s, safe water supply and sanitation became components of primary healthcare.
•    In the 1990s, the new Constitution in 1995 and a new Health Policy in 1993 were designed to reflect the social and health needs of the Ethiopian population. Hygiene, sanitation and environmental matters are stated aims.
•    In early 2000 the Health Extension Programme was designed and integrated into the Health Sector Development Programme as a tool to enhance hygiene and sanitation in rural and urban areas.

DEFINITIONS
Hygiene :
•    Hygiene generally refers to the set of practices associated with the preservation of health and healthy living.
•    The focus is mainly on personal hygiene that looks at cleanliness of the hair, body, hands, fingers, feet and clothing, and menstrual hygiene.
•    Improvements in personal knowledge, skill and practice that modify an individual’s behaviour towards healthy practice are the focus of hygiene promotion.
•    Safe hygiene practice includes a broad range of healthy behaviours, such as handwashing before eating and after cleaning a child’s bottom, and safe faeces disposal.
•    When you carry out hygiene education and promotion the aim is to transfer knowledge and understanding of hygiene and associated health risks in order to help people change their behaviour to use better hygiene practices.

Sanitation :
•    Sanitation means the prevention of human contact with wastes, for hygienic purposes.
•    It also means promoting health through the prevention of human contact with the hazards associated with the lack of healthy food, clean water and healthful housing, the control of vectors (living organisms that transmit diseases), and a clean environment.
•    It focuses on management of waste produced by human activities.

There are different types of sanitation relating to particular situations, such as:
•    Basic sanitation: refers to the management of human faeces at the household level. It means access to a toilet or latrine.
•    Onsite sanitation: the collection and treatment of waste at the place where it is deposited.
•    Food sanitation: refers to the hygienic measures for ensuring food safety. Food hygiene is similar to food sanitation.
•    Housing sanitation: refers to safeguarding the home environment (the dwelling and its immediate environment).
•    Environmental sanitation: the control of environmental factors that form links in disease transmission. This category includes solid waste management, water and wastewater treatment, industrial waste treatment and noise and pollution control.
•    Ecological sanitation: the concept of recycling the nutrients from human and animal wastes to the environment.

To be Continued in Part 2