Household waste disposal : knowledge, perception, practices, and relationship with diarrhea frequency in Laputta Township in Myanmar

A cross-sectional study was done in Yay Twin Seik Village Tract in Laputta Township, Myanmar, in March, 2011. The main objectives of this study were to assess the level of knowledge, perception and practices on household waste disposal; and to find out the association between socio-demographic, household characteristics, level of knowledge and perception with level of practices on household waste disposal associated with diarrhea frequency in Laputta residents. This study was carried out with 389 subjects by using a structured interviewer-administrated questionnaire to acquire data, with ethical review protocol no. 031.1/54 which was approved on 24th March, 2011. To find out the association between independent variables, socio-demographic and household characteristics; and practice on household waste disposal, the one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) test was used. Chi-square tests were done to assess the associations between socio-demographic and household characteristics with diarrhea; knowledge and perception towards household waste disposal with practice on household waste disposal as well as with diarrhea occurrence. The overall diarrhea occurrence was 19.5%. Among respondents, 78.1% had high level of knowledge while 21.1% had moderate level of knowledge. For perception towards household waste disposal, 50.4% of respondents had high-level perception and 48.1% had moderate level of perception. Practice on household waste disposal differed significantly with drinking water source (<0.001), number of trash bin (p=0.032), trash bins with wide lids (p=0.01), emptying of trash bins (p=0.008), kitchen waste (p=0.017) and perception towards household waste disposal (<0.001). The households which used pond water and rain water had higher practice score; the more the number of the trash bins, the higher the practice score; the use of trash bins with wide lids was linked to the higher practice score; and the more frequent they emptied trash bins, the more practice score they had. Indoor latrine (OR=2.38; 95% CI: 1.02-5.49) and number of children under 5 (OR=2.09; 95% CI: 1.08-4.04) were risk factors for diarrhea while trash bins with narrow lids (OR=0.30, 95% CI: 0.16-0.59) were protective against diarrhea. This study provides baseline data regarding household waste disposal for further studies. The result can also inform policy makers to develop strategy and planning to improve household waste disposal and to reduce diarrhea occurrence. Further research on determinants of waste disposal practices and diarrhea occurrence is needed in Laputta and elsewhere.