Publication:

Effectiveness of a multidimensional health awareness programme on NCDs and communicable diseases, vaccination and environmental hazards: a community-based study in the Indian Sundarbans

Background A health awareness program is an essential tool for determining health outcomes, especially in rural communities like the Sundarban area, where access to healthcare and services is limited. The study aimed to assess the effectiveness of a health awareness program on knowledge regarding communicable and non-communicable diseases, vaccination, and environmental hazards among villagers in the Mathurapur area of Sundarban.

Methods This study employed a pre-experimental research design, specifically the one-group pre-test and post-test design. Data were collected from 100 randomly selected participants using structured questionnaires and analysed via SPSS (version 27) software.

Results Results showed a significant improvement in post-test knowledge scores as p<0.001 in the paired t-test. The study reflects that 76% of participants had poor knowledge regarding communicable diseases and NCDs, vaccination, environmental hazards in pre-test whereas changing in knowledge, 83% attained good knowledge in post-test.

Conclusions The majority of respondents moved from poor knowledge to good knowledge regarding communicable diseases and NCDs, vaccination, environmental hazards in the post-test, from pre-test. The study showed that the elderly group, female participants, higher educational level, higher income level, and employment correlate with higher knowledge, whereas it is necessary to focus more on students, lower income levels, lower literacy individuals, and males to empower them about the importance of health awareness programs.