Household Level Sanitation Practices and Their Implication on the Occurrence of Diarrhea and Other Related Infections in Temeke Municipality, Tanzania

Abstract

This study aimed at assessing households' level sanitation practices and their implication on the occurrence of diarrhoea and other related infections in Temeke Municipality. A cross-sectional study was conducted in the study area involving 220 respondents, randomly selected through simple random sampling from Azimio, Mtoni and Tandika wards. The study employed a mixed-method approach involving quantitative data from the household survey and qualitative data  from key informant interviews. Data were analyzed using IBM-Statistics SPSS V.20 to compute frequencies and percentages presented in tables. The findings revealed that 77.7% of all the households have latrines that can be accessed within their plot. Furthermore, 94.7% of all the households share latrines which are located near their respective compound. In addition, the majority (97.4%) of the respondents use a bowl for washing hands, while 0.9% have a tap connected to water distribution. The majority (70%) of the respondents’ latrines are in bad condition, 94% have no water available inside for flushing and cleaning the facility and 17% reported that their facility leak sometimes in the past 6 months. The study concludes that there is improper management of available latrines in the study area which is attributed to factors like overuse and water scarcity among household compounds. The study recommends that the improvement of household-level sanitation practices should be embedded with behavioural change for better utilization of available facilities.