Students' perceptions of the nature and magnitude of environmental health concerns in Mtwara town, Tanzania

Abstract

The study aimed to critically assess secondary school students' perceptions of the nature and magnitude of environmental health problems in Mtwara town, Tanzania.A structured questionnaire was used to collect data, while descriptive statistics such as frequencies, percentages, mean, or standard deviation were applied to describe the basic characteristics of the data. Principal components analysis was used to examine the dominant modes of variation of functional data in environmental health concerns of Mtwara town. The students perceived the following seven environmental health issues that are urgent in Mtwara town: water supply and management, natural disasters, sanitation and hygiene, solid waste, air quality, climate change, and population concern.To ensure that generations live in a healthy and safe environment, one must consider creating environmentally conscious individuals. K E Y W O R D Sclimate change, environmental health, natural hazards, sanitation and hygiene, water supply and management INTRODUCTIONEnvironment and human health are closely intertwined. The fulfillment of the basic human rights to life, health, nutrition, housing, livelihood, and culture depends on the existence of a good environment (Springer et al., 2011). Furthermore, a decent environment depends on sustainable human activities such as agriculture, industry, mining, and fisheries. Therefore, protecting the environment and promoting human health in order to achieve sustainable development requires environmentally-friendly activities from everyone (Bishoge et al., 2022a). Factors hampering sustainable environmental management include rapid population growth, industrialization, high deployment of a variety of technologies, and intensive use of natural resources (Koné et al., 2019). This has led to an increase in environmental health (EH) issues such as pollution, climate change, disease-causing microbes, lack of access to healthcare, and poor water quality and infrastructure. These concerns have implications for human health and ecological systems, including increases in disease and organism death. In Africa, it is estimated that around 23% of the burden of disease and death are mainly contributed by the environmental factors such as air, food and water pollution, toxic chemicals, waste, disease vectors, safety hazards, and habitat changes (WHO, 2020). Africa experiences various EH issues, including sanitation and hygiene services, provision of safe drinking water, and inadequate water for other hygienic activities. Also, other EH risk factors, include soil and air pollution management, waste and chemical management, vector control, child EH and occupational health. These concerns are influenced by socio-economic, cultural, and political conditions. The African continent also faces a dual burden of communicable and non-communicable diseases (WHO, 2017). The communicable, non-communicable diseases and injuries are reported to contribute to high rates of burden and death in sub-Saharan Africa