An assessment of the determinants of household sanitation and hygiene practices in Tororo Municipality, Tororo district, Uganda

Abstract

The study focused on the determinants of household sanitation and hygiene practices in Tororo municipality, Tororo District, Uganda. It was a cross sectional study conducted in Tororo Municipality western division between June-November 2023.Tororo district is located on the eastern part of Uganda 10 Kilometers from the border town of Malaba and 209 Kilometers from Kampala the capital city of Uganda. A sample size of 433 was obtained using the formula for calculating sample size by Yamane Taro after accounting for a non-response of 10%.Multistage sampling was done on the divisions and households where the first household head was selected using simple random sampling and subsequent households were selected if their location was facing opposite the door of the previous household. Standardized data collection tools were used to collect data, by trained research Assistants. The data collected were checked for completeness and consistency and then entered into the standardized database designed using Microsoft Google forms. Data was exported to Microsoft excel, for further cleaning and analysis. The outcome variable was household sanitation and hygiene measured using three parameters which were fecal disposal, hand washing with soap and garbage disposal. A total of 394 out of 433 household heads were interviewed and out of these (50.3%) were males while (49.3%) were females. The prevalence of poor fecal disposal, no access to hand washing facilities and poor garbage disposal facilities were 15%, 17.5% and 4.1% respectively among all the respondents interviewed. Institutional factors were found to influence sanitation and hygiene practices through the existence of sanitation and hygiene sensitization programmes and enforcement of byelaws. The economic factors were also associated with financial status of the household heads gained through formal employment or self-employment and found to impact on the affordability of sanitation and hygiene facilities. From this study the sanitation and hygiene of the study respondents was found to be above the national average. However even with this finding, there is still need to have universal coverage because in the event of an outbreak there can be a catastrophe from the spread of communicable diseases such as cholera, diarrhea and typhoid. This can lead to morbidity and mortality thereby increasing the demand for limited health resources among the people and the Government. There is therefore need to enforce bylaws, improve the economic capacity of the people through creating jobs and offering employment opportunities, including garbage disposal.