Rouya Peiravi; Mohammad Vahedian-Shahroodi; Hossein Alidadi; Malihe Noori Sistani
Abstract
Background and objective: Environmental Health Officers (EHO) being essential members of health systems play a key role in the prevention of disease and the environmental sanitation by consulting, inspecting, monitoring and law enforcing (if it’s necessary). Protection of the environment and promotion ...
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Background and objective: Environmental Health Officers (EHO) being essential members of health systems play a key role in the prevention of disease and the environmental sanitation by consulting, inspecting, monitoring and law enforcing (if it’s necessary). Protection of the environment and promotion ofthe community health need to enforce strict rules so that the adverse effects of environmental pollution reduced as much as possible. This study was carried out to survey the knowledge of Environmental Health Officers about the executive process of legal item 13. Materials and Method: This cross-sectional study was performed in 2014, after testing the validity and reliability of questionnaire, they were filled by inspectors.The questions regarding the Knowledge were scored. Relationship between the knowledge and demographic characteristics was analyzed by SPSSsoftware through statistical test including paired T-Test, one-way ANOVA andChi square test at a significant level of 0.05. Results: The mean age of 54 Environmental Health Inspectors was equal to 34.2±6.2, and their mean job experience was 10.35±7.8 years. The number of people with a good knowledge was almost equal to the number of people with poor knowledge. The highest percentage of people (33.3%) had moderateknowledge. The relationship between knowledge with employment status (p= 0.036) and knowledge with academic degree (p=0.05) were significant. Conclusion: According to the obtained results and the importance of EHO’s role in the promotion of community health, it is necessary that a regular training program is structured to increase the EHO’s awareness in regard to the executive process of legal item13 after their employment and before their starting work.