Abstract

SALAS PALACIOS, Sara Riccis; VALDES GARCIA, Luis Eugenio; ARO GUERRA, Irlán  and  PEREZ ANDRES, Irela. Environmental, behavioural and health factors related to cholera in Santiago de Cuba. MEDISAN [online]. 2015, vol.19, n.9, pp.1130-1139. ISSN 1029-3019.

Introduction: cholera is considered in Latin America a re-emerging disease, influenced by social, cultural and environmental factors. Objective: to evaluate the environmental, behavioural and health factors related to the cholera in Santiago from Cuba. Methods: a descriptive and cross-sectional study of the environmental factors and population behaviour related to cholera, as well as of the organization of the health systems for the control of the epidemics was carried out in Santiago de Cuba province. The universe was constituted by 356 087 families selected from the care units, informed in the preliminary figures of the Population and Housings Census in 2012. A sampling was used by poly-stage conglomerate with proportional inclusion probabilities to the size of each conglomerate, and 10 polyclinics, 50 doctor's offices and 40 families were selected in each one, for a final size of 2 000 families. Results: it was considered that in 80.0% of the families the conditions of water preservation were adequate, 21.8% of the samples provided certain positive results to pathogens in the bacteriological sampling, 30,2% of the families had a poor system of evacuation of sewage, 61,.25% qualified between the categories "out of service and middle service", and 27.2% of the ditches, rivers and the channels observed in the sample had bad hygiene conditions, with more difficulties in II Frente, La Maya, Palma Soriano and Santiago de Cuba municipalities. Conclusions: environmental and behavioural factors were identified in the population which the transmission of cholera and influenced in the process of disease control in Santiago de Cuba province

Keywords : cholera; socioeconomic factors; human behaviour; health behaviour.

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