Interdisciplinary Assessment of Hygiene Practices in Multiple Locations: Implications for COVID-19 Pandemic Preparedness in Vietnam

Abstract

Due to the shared border with China, Vietnam faced risks from the COVID-19 pandemic at the early stages of the outbreak. Good hygiene practices were considered an effective prevention method, but there were only minimal data on the effectiveness of hygiene practices against the pandemic at the community level. Thus, this study aims to assess hygiene practices in society by using a community-based survey. A cross-sectional study using survey monkey was conducted from December 2019 to February 2020. The Snowball sampling technique was used to recruit participants and exploratory factor analysis was applied to scrutinize the construct validity of the measurement. We used the Tobit regression model to assess the association. Hygiene in a high-risk environment and hygiene in the social and educational environment were two main factors after applying the EFA method. Participants grade community sanitation quite low (around 6 out of 10). Furthermore, the mean score of hygiene practice at a local level in a high-risk environment was slightly low at 6.0. The score of sanitation in the Central region (5.3) was quite low compared to the North (5.8) and the South (6.2). The most high-risk environment was construction, industrial zone and food safety. Moreover, younger respondents were more likely to report poorer hygiene practices in high-risk environments (Coefficient = −1.67; 95% CI = −3.03; −0.32) and social and educational environment (Coefficient = −1.29; 95% CI = −2.54; −0.04). Our study gives an insight into pandemic preparedness at the grassroots level. The findings suggest the necessity of specific communication education for society to improve the compliance of hygiene practices to prevent the spreading of COVID-19.

Preventive behaviours and family inequalities during the COVID-19 pandemic: a cross-sectional study in China

“…Therefore, expanding the application of hand sanitizing by strategically placing hand sanitizers in high-traffic public places (e.g., malls, restaurants, and libraries), promoting the dissemination of up-to-date information on regulations and policies for COVID-19 prevention through the mass media [ 35 ], providing training programs for medical students that includes both theoretical and contextual approaches [ 36 ], and targeted communication to the public to improve compliance with hygiene behaviours could be worth the government’s attention [ 37 ]. Public health workers must increase public identification of preventive behaviours to foster daily exercise and hand-washing habits in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic.…”

Understanding Accessibility to Medical and Healthcare Services for Informal Workers in Bangkok During the COVID-19 Outbreak

“…Considering other countries in ASEAN, such as Vietnam, the knowledge of COVID-19 is shared with the people through mass media and peer-educators, especially the knowledge of the outbreak and the hygiene practices to protect the COVID-19 infection (Tran et al, 2020). Research also suggested that the effective way to provide health education through the grassroots level of society is through accessible channels, such as online media, newspapers, and television (Nguyen et al, 2021). Lieutenant General (Ret) Terawan Agus Putranto, Former Minister of Health, Indonesia and Chair of the ASEAN Health Ministers Meeting, as well supported community and primary healthcare as the effective systems to provide health education about COVID-19 to national according to the ASEAN context (Putranto, 2020).…”

Food safety behavioural changes among the population in Sub-Saharan Africa during the COVID-19 first wave

“…However, food contamination has quite often been reported as the cause of many outbreaks, which is the reason why a certain number of hygienic recommendations and rules have been defined for populations and industries, respectively. In Vietnam for example, a survey carried out from December 2019 to February 2020 suggested the necessity of a specific communication education strategy for society to improve the compliance with hygiene practices to prevent the spreading of COVID-19 ( Nguyen et al., 2021 ). Indeed, the need for enhancing customers’ protection systems, and the capability of inspecting and supervising the food processing progress by local authorities had previously been reported in a cross-sectional survey in 2015 ( Nguyen et al., 2018 ).…”