Health impact assessment for local authority staff from chemical exposure: case study Of DHF host management at Office of Disease Prevention and Control Region 4, Ratchaburi

Abstract

Dengue fever is one of important disease. Disease prevention was performed by the roles of local authority staff and disease control more area. At least ninety percent of control technique is chemicals usage. Staff who expose to the used chemicals are risky on their health. This research aimed to investigate the chemicals usage among local authority staffs and their prevention, and find the relationship of influencing factors on their health effects. This research was designed as cross-sectional survey research. Multi-stage sampling technique was used to select samples and sample size. Six hundred and two staff was interviewed. Statistical approaches were descriptive statistics and Pearson correlation. The results indicated that majority staff were male (95.7%) with average age 41.6 years old, 5.4 years of working in DHF control. Approximately 50.2% has attended the mosquito chemical spraying. Deltamethrin was a major chemical with 82.9% and follow the chemical preparation as mentioned in the guideline (46.6%). In case of DHF patient was diagnosed, chemical was sprayed for 2 times for each found patient. Thirty nine per cent of staff sprayed chemicals 5 hours consecutively for each day, 31.2% has paused less than 30 minutes with 60.3%. Knowledge of staff was moderate level (47.0%). Training attendance was significant related to knowledge level with p<0.05. Behavior of staff on chemical use was moderate level (55.1%). Age and timing of spraying and training attendance are significant related to behavior of staff on chemical use and prevention performance (p<0.01). The staff has abnormal symptom after chemical use. The main found symptom was throat pain (44%). Age and timing of spraying were significant related to recognition symptoms after spraying with p<0.01. The results of the study use should be strictly regulated according to the Ministry of Health regulations. The staff responsible for chemical use should attend the training program before operations, code of practice for local administration should be launched, personal protective equipment for officers should be available and maintained in good condition and the annual health examination for officers should be regularly performed. To reduce the prevalence of dengue, chemical use is one approach; however, using an integrating approach among local people and responsible organizations should be taken into account.