Effective health education in rural Gambia

We aimed to measure the impact of a structured health education programme o n the incidence of infectious disease in young children of a rural Gambian village, In a prospective intervention study, mothers of children under 3 y ears living in a rural West African village without running water (populati on 1600) were divided into two groups by site of residence. Group 1 (n = 70 ) received a fortnightly education talk on hand-washing and skin hygiene, a nd group 2 (n = 84) on family planning. The incidence of infectious skin an d diarrhoeal, eye, and respiratory diseases were recorded at the clinics at tended by all children, The mean incidence of skin infections in the childr en of mothers of group 1 (1.07) was significantly lower (p < 0.05) than tha t of group 2 (1.59) during the rainy season. Between 1981 and 1.994 the inc idence of skin, diarrhoeal, and eye disease showed a statistically signific ant (p < 0.0001) decline following the implementation of the health educati on programme. There was no statistical significance in the trend for respir atory disease, the incidence of which would not be expected to be affected by hygiene education, Focused health education had a sustained beneficial e ffect on the health of young children living in conditions where infectious diseases and poor hygiene are common.