Public health workers’ role in environmental sanitation and community growth

In recent times, there has been increase in the number of ailments that people have to combat with on a daily basis. Experts have traced a good number of these diseases to unclean environment and the way it is handled by health workers. Public health workers function within the primary health care system and are charged with certain responsibilities aimed at improving health status through healthy environmental practices to ensure clean environment with focus on every community to guarantee regular sanitation, hygiene, safe water supply, waste disposal methods and pollution management amongst others. The extents to which these objectives have been achieved inform the theme of this study. In this descriptive and cross-sectional survey, a multistage sampling was adopted in data collection from both primary and secondary sources. The primary data was collected by the use of structured questionnaire administered to 399 residents of Awka South Local Government of Anambra State. The secondary data was sourced from previously documented studies as well as newspapers and Internet materials. The quantitative data collected were analyzed using descriptive statistics. Findings reveal that there are poor environmental management practices by residents and there are insufficient public health workers to handle the menace of environmental mismanagement. Consequently, there is need for massive public enlightenment to ensure residents imbibe the habit of cleaning their environment and the need to employ more public health workers in the local areas so as to be able to effectively manage the environment and prevent unnecessary outbreak of diseases.