Developing Environmental Health Literacy to Address Fine Particulate Matter Problems Among Village Health Volunteers in Bueng Kan Province

Abstract

This action research aimed to develop and study the results of environmental health literacy development to address the fine particulate matter (PM2.5) problem among village health volunteers (VHVs) in Bueng Kan Province. The study was divided into three phases: survey, development and evaluation. Participants were 382 VHVs selected from a population of 8,030 through stratified random sampling using for both the survey and evaluation phases. The development phase involved 18 stakeholders. The research instruments included questionnaires and interview guidelines. Data were analyzed using descriptive statistics and inferential statistics, including Pearson's product-moment and Paired t-test with a significant level of 0.05.

The results revealed that the development process consisted of four steps: planning; implementation; observation of results; and reflection for process improvement. The development results illustrated that VHVs in Bueng Kan Province had high levels of environmental health literacy and PM2.5 problem management behavior, with mean scores of 3.51 (S.D. = 0.90) and 3.95 (S.D. = 0.92), respectively. Factors that associated with PM2.5 problem management behavior included: access to environmental health information (r = 0.548, p-value <0.001) and understanding of environmental health information (r = 0.604, p-value <0.001), showing moderate correlations. Environmental health information verification (r = 0.722, p-value <0.001) and health protection decision-making (r = 0.728, p-value <0.001) had high correlations. After implementation, environmental health literacy development significantly improved compared to before implementation (p-value <0.001).

The findings of this study can be employed for further developing participatory environmental health literacy promotion programs for VHVs, enabling them to be better prepared for their community roles and to effectively transfer knowledge to community members.