Active Engagement of Community Stakeholders and their Capacity Building for Better Hygiene Practices in Tribal Odisha, India: A Case of Balasore District

A comprehensive study was undertaken in a tribal community of Odisha, India to improve health outcome indicators by promoting access to better personal hygiene and sanitation. The approach embraced a community-based, actionoriented model for social change in which an integrated strategy was designed to improve health and hygiene in the community. The strategy was implemented with active participation of key stakeholders within the community using Capacity Building Model. A questionnaire was designed and used before and three months after the intervention. The effect of the intervention was evaluated by measuring behavior changes in the population towards personal hygiene. Statistically significant changes were observed in behavior of the population with regards to use of toilet and soap. A chi-square test of independence was performed to examine the relation between community-led interventions and behavior change after three months of the intervention. The relation between these variables was significant, χ2 (2, N=136)=31.373, p<0.01.

Author(s): Abhijeet Sinha

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