A Study of the Awareness of Environmental Sanitation among Women

Environmental Sanitation promotes the health and wellbeing of the Humanity. It has many components, out of which the cleanliness, Health and Hygiene, drinking water and sewage and its disposal plays an important role in environmental sanitation. Promotion of environmental sanitation depends on the awareness possessed by the stakeholders and women in particular as they are directory involved in safeguarding it. In view of the above, the present study was conceived to understand the characteristics of self-help group women and to find out the awareness of the women in environmental sanitation in terms of cleanliness, hygiene, drinking water and sewage and its disposal. The study was conducted in the Ananthapuram District of Andhra Pradesh on a sample of 400 women. The investigator has designed a open ended schedule to identify the awareness of the women. The finding of the study revealed that the sample are represented form middle aged, Backward castes, married, low educated, with two children. The house hold head are male, married, low educated. The family background shows that more than half of the sample has 3-4 members in their family, middle income, nuclear families, wage earners, and have their own house with two rooms, half of the sample are aware of the purification of water and quantity of water to be taken per day. The knowledge in self-hygiene among the sample was found to be significant in case of utility of soap, cleaning of hands, best habits of bath etc. On the other hand, the sample does not have adequate knowledge in case of place and cleaning of hands, frequency of bath. The women are well aware about keeping the surrounding cleanly to avoid the bad smell and pollution, disposal of garbage, mosquito breeding due to storage of sewage, effect of sewage on village health, disposal of household garbage, keeping the lid on the solid waste storage pit, disposable of waste water to prevent the mosquitoes breeding etc. Hence there is a need to promote awareness among the community in the area where there is a need and should convert the awareness to healthy habits.