A descriptive correlational study was conducted to develop and test a Universal Precautions (UP) Scale designed to monitor nurses' compliance with the practice of universal precautions in the hospital setting. Subscales of the Universal Precautions Scale included barrier precautions usage, personal carefulness factors and handwashing. Nurses (n = 59) working in special care units completed the demographic survey, the UP scale, and the Marlowe-Crowne Social Desirability Scale. Concurrent validity was investigated by observing handwashing behavior of a subgroup (n = 34) of those nurses surveyed. Self-report of handwashing frequency did not correlate with observed handwashing frequency, although observed handwashing adequacy did relate with self-reported handwashing adequacy and personal carefulness factors. The UP scale, as constructed, was not related to the handwashing behavior, one behavioral indicator of use of universal precautions, but has demonstrated a potential for further refinement and testing.

The research underpinning this work took place in the context of two rural water and sanitation projects carried out in the Eastern Region of Ghana. The focus of study was on the way engineers can make water and sanitation projects more sustainable. In particular, emphasis was placed on the broad range of non-technical factors engineers need to incorporate into the design of water and sanitation systems and the processes they need to follow in order to achieve this, looking specifically at the implications of community participation for design process, project management and health and safety management. The current high failure rate of rural water and sanitation projects provided the impetus for carrying out this work. There is an urgent need to improve engineering ability to provide vital life-saving infrastructure in developing countries as this infrastructure is a pre-requisite for poverty reduction. A critical realist perspective framed the research to allow socially constructed realities to be combined with scientific and technical facts, and to allow inquiry in a ‘real world’ scenario where variables cannot be controlled individually. The research questions were explored through the author’s involvement in two community development projects involving water and sanitation system implementation. The key methods employed were interview, both informal and group, observation and reflection. The contribution to knowledge made by this investigation is an increased understanding of the relevance of social and cultural context for engineers engaged in rural water and sanitation infrastructure provision through exploration of these issues in a particular context. Also examined are health and safety aspects of rural water and sanitation projects where the community participate in construction. Whilst health and safety had been explored in a developing country context there is a lack of previous work looking at these issues in a community self-construction context. It was found that a broad range of factors need to be considered in the engineering design of water and sanitation systems if projects are to have a chance of being sustainable in the long term. In order to understand and design appropriately for the context of rural projects with direct community involvement it is necessary to adapt the engineering process to incorporate community participation fully into the design and construction of water and sanitation facilities. Where communities are involved in construction particular issues arise with regards to health and safety management; many of the issues originate in the socio-cultural context and motivations for community members to engage in hazardous construction activities need to be understood and considered to properly manage the construction process. To truly incorporate the ideas of local communities into engineering design, engineers need a greater awareness of the assumptions they hold arising from their scientific outlook. Further research is required in different contexts in order to more clearly define the boundaries of the findings of this study and begin to overcome the limitations of the case study method. However, this research contributes to understanding how engineers can improve their designs of water and sanitation infrastructure and the processes they use to create more sustainable projects by looking at these issues in one particular context. This contribution adds to understanding of how a lack of access to water and sanitation infrastructure in rural regions of developing countries can be overcome, which is ultimately necessary to meet the Millennium Development Goals and as a pre-requisite to reducing poverty in the developing world.

In Ghana, over 70% of urban dwellers do not have private sanitation facilities in their home and rely instead on an informal network of shared toilets. The predominance of shared toilets in Ghana is the result of unplanned urbanization, specific features of housing, socio-economic characteristics of the population and political orientations. Shared sanitation includes a whole range of models from large toilets blocks owned by the municipality to toilet cubicles shared by tenants of the same house. Shared toilets are not considered as improved sanitation facilities as access for vulnerable groups, maintenance, hygiene, privacy and safety of the users are not always guaranteed. However, for millions of urban dwellers, shared toilets are the only alternative to open defecation and are used daily. Some of these facilities, through better management models and through better standards, provide services appreciated by the users. The aim of this research is to determine which models of shared facilities are acceptable sanitation solutions for urban dwellers, depending on the local circumstances. To do so, the research framework compares the perspectives of dwellers and sanitation providers, acknowledges the characteristics of the specific urban context and considers the relationships between the key stakeholders. In a fast growing city in Ghana, Ashaiman, 432 house units representing over 8000 residents were surveyed, over 40 participatory exercises and 38 interviews with a range of stakeholders were conducted. This research concludes on four main points. Firstly, many apparently similar areas are actually not uniform; the heterogeneity of urban planning and housing influences any past and future sanitation developments. Urban planners need to integrate sanitation in their future decisions but base these on appropriate solutions. The second finding is that some models of shared sanitation can be considered as adequate given the particular context and its likely evolution. The different models have legitimacy at different stages of urban development and their successful selection depends on the quality of the contextual understanding. Thirdly, cleanliness and affordability are key determinants when the dwellers select shared toilets. Given the toilet options available, these determinants are often mutually exclusive and are a dilemma for the users. This dilemmas result in variations in use of shared toilets within a neighbourhood, and at intra household and individual levels. The final point is that choice and then acceptability of a facility depends on the options available. Therefore deciding which facilities are best adapted to the local context should be in the hands of both local providers and dwellers, supported by other local stakeholders who enable relationships through adapted policies and facilitated dialogues.

Doctor of Philosophy / Department of Grain Science / Bhadriraju Subramanyam / Mark E. Casada / In commercial grain elevators and feed mills, the boot and pit areas contribute to commingling of insects with grain that moves through the elevator leg. A pilot-scale bucket elevator leg with a modified removable boot, or slip-boot, was used to measure the magnitude of commingling as a function of stored-product insect density and boot holding time in tests with wheat and corn. Pilot-scale tests showed that clean grain transferred over infested boots was infested with about 1 insect/kg when transferred immediately after the boot was infested; this increased to 2 insects/kg after incubating the boot for 8 wk. Larger numbers of kernels with internal infestations were picked up by clean grain during transfer compared with externally infesting insects, because the mobility of the latter enabled them to move away from buckets during transfer. Monthly surveys over two years at elevators and feed mills revealed several stored-product insects in grain residues from the boot and pit areas and bulk load-out samples. Insect densities in the boot and pit areas were impacted by seasonal temperatures and facility sanitation practices. Recommended sanitation guidelines for the boot and pit areas include: (1) boot residual grain clean-out every 30 d, (2) removal of grain spillage and floor sweepings from the pit area, and (3) proper disposal of boot and pit residual grain. Facilities following these sanitation guidelines could avoid costly grain discounts, increase income of the business operation and minimize or prevent cross contamination of clean grain by infested grain in the boot and pit areas.

Masters in Public Administration - MPA / "Sanitation is dignity" as the state has proclaimed while water is life. Yet to date, there are families and communities that are still dreaming that one day their dignity will be restored and they will have access to proper toilets, clean water that are within close proximity including proper houses. In the 24th year of democracy, people in South Africa are still protesting and challenging government to address the inequalities of the past and reset the agenda of change. These persistent protests are about basic needs and service delivery, but increasingly protestors are invoking the concept of relative needs, dignity and human rights and taking protests to the powerful and wealthy. In fact, the idea of the state as sacrosanct has been deflated since protestors throw poo at state officials and vandalise state infrastructure. The “poo wars” that broke out in 2012 with poo dumped at the airport and government buildings continued with the dumping of excrement on the Rhodes statue at UCT shows that the poor can sometimes set the agenda of change and force politicians to listen. Among the defensive responses raised by authorities is that people put their shacks on private land or pieces of land that are not suitable for housing (wetlands). Politically, there are complex issues in the Western Cape, both the Province and the City of Cape Town Metro are Democratic Alliance (DA) run whilst national government is ruled by the African National Congress (ANC). The majority of townships residents are ANC supporters with a few DA Proportional Representative (PR) councillors. This study looks at a qualitative exploration of the complexities in agenda-setting and participation processes in sanitation services in Site C, Khayelitsha between 2010-2013.Residents see agenda setting and engagements as unilateral, as this study found. It is designed into six chapters. The study was designed in a manner that it would reflect the knowledge and understanding the notion of consultation, community participation in decision-making, agenda-setting and implementation of projects or programmes by the people of Khayelitsha-Site C, Councillors, Shopstewards and officials of the City of Cape Town. Over 20 interviews were completed. A key finding is that by taking poo out of its usual place, taking it out of the private into the public domain and to the rich and by invading their space, the issues of the poor are no longer confined to ghetto townships. Boundaries between state and civil society have become porous. Cape Town’s poor residents using portable toilets commonly known as "pota-pota", and also the temporary toilets commonly known as ‘Mshengu’ have argued that these interim services are not only poorly maintained and dirty but are vastly inferior compared to white areas.

Magister Philosophiae (Land and Agrarian Studies) - MPhil(LAS) / Water supply and sanitation remain a huge problem in townships and rural areas of South Africa, in effect affecting the water supply, hygiene and health of marginalized communities. Following democracy in 1994, South Africa’s new government embarked on a program of eradicating backlogs in water supply and sanitation that had become endemic under apartheid in townships and rural areas. In addition, South Africa’s constitution categorically states that every citizen has a right to a minimum of basic water supply and sanitation. Internationally, access to basic water supply and sanitation are fundamental human rights. Thus the South African government aims is to ensure that all South Africans have access to basic water and sanitation services. This study investigated the quantity and quality of water and how these effect sanitation and hygiene of communities using Walmer Township in the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality as a case study. The study used a multi-pronged methodological approach including structured interviews with a sample of households, key informant interviews, focus group discussions, observations and secondary information. Although the Walmer Community felt that they had access to sufficient quantity of water for their daily use and that the quality of the water was fine, the reality was that most households use less than the daily minimum amount of water per person as required in the constitution because of the distance where they have to fetch the water, which is too far to collect more water than they absolutely need. There is need for municipality to provide more stand pipes in order to reduce the distance that most households have to walk to fetch water. 80% of Walmer residents still use the bucket system, which is the issue that the community is more aggrieved about. One of the reasons the bucket system persists is the unplanned development of the Township and the type of dwellings (mostly shacks) that people still use. Also, the Township has grown and mushroomed organically as a result of the constant influx of people looking for better economic opportunities from rural areas or other urban areas. This makes it very difficult for the municipality to plan for and provide services and infrastructure as the Municipality is always playing catch-up. Worse still, the average number of people that use each bucket toilet (over 80) makes it extremely difficult to maintain the toilets clean and in functional and usable state at all times. Another problem is that the buckets, in particular those managed by the municipality, are not collected as scheduled resulting in spill-over of the toilets. Most of all, there are currently no clear arrangements around management and maintenance of the bucket toilets. Therefore the impact that the bucket system has on the residents’ health and hygiene, and the general Township environment is dire. The uncontrolled and continuing influx of people into Walmer Township has led to very high population density, with the average number of people per household up to ten. Most people of working age in these households are unemployed, which means that most households in the Township depend on social grants for survival. The high unemployment rate and dependency on social grants by most households in Walmer Township means that the community cannot afford to pay for services and therefore depend on amenities provided by the Municipality. The majority of the population of Walmer Township depends on basic services provided by the Municipality. These are provided as public amenities available to all Walmer residents, which makes them largely ‘open access’. This has resulted in poor management and poor maintenance of these amenities. The unhygienic state of most of the bucket toilets and the poor state of water stand taps is as a result of this current management arrangement. It would improve management of these public amenities if a system of locating stand taps and bucket toilets to specific households that could limit access and use to these defined groups of households was introduced. These households would then be responsible for maintaining and managing use of the specific and allocated amenities. The current management arrangements for these public amenities point to the fact that there is currently lack of participatory planning and management between the Municipality and the community. The Municipality takes top-down decisions resulting in disjuncture between the Municipality and the Community in terms of real community needs, provision of these needs, and how they should be serviced and managed.

Historically, Zimbabwe’s urban population enjoyed high water supply and sanitation service levels and standards, having one of the highest coverage levels in Africa. However, over the last two decades, the quality of Zimbabwe’s urban water supply and sanitation services has slowly been eroded. The poor, displaced and disenfranchised Zimbabweans that occupy Harare’s informal urban settlements are vulnerable to challenges posed by unavailability of basic water and sanitation services. This qualitative research project, carried out between January and June 2013 in Harare’s Hopley and Retreat informal settlements, investigates factors that have been preventing delivery of basic sanitation services to residents in these two settlements. Presenting evidence from the two informal settlements of Hopley and Retreat, this research establishes that there is a complex relationship at play between policy processes, the prevailing political environment and the way in which institutions have responded to the problem of sanitation in these settlements. The study was undertaken towards the end of an era of a negotiated Government of National Unity between ZANU-PF and the Movement for Democratic Change, highlights the dominance of power and political contestation between the two parties that has spilled into policy decisions on basic service provision in the informal settlements. The deep rooted culture of political violence which characterised the political environment from 2000 onwards, with very little commitment to democratic processes, was instrumental in the development of Hopley settlement after the 2005 elections. At face value, ZANU-PF was providing displaced people with alternative accommodation. However, as Muzondidya notes, this along with other ZANU-PF strategies is ‘(c)onsistent with its hegemonic political culture… to engage in cosmetic political and economic reforms that will not result in further democracy or result in a loss of its historic monopoly over power…’ (Muzondidya in Raftopolous, 2013, p.50). Informal settlements are a relatively new phenomenon in Zimbabwe. However, since their inception, they have continued to grow, fuelled by ZANU-PF’s strategy to allocate unserviced residential stands in exchange for residents’ allegiance to the party, with the most recent illegal residential stand allocations taking place in Chitungwiza town in 2013. A close examination of Hopley and Retreat revealed that water and sanitation services provided in Zimbabwe’s informal settlements are typically inadequate or non-existent – a situation that has the potential for severe public health impacts. The emergency actions taken by Non-Governmental Organisations during the height of the 2008 cholera outbreak only provided short-term sanitation solutions. The research concludes that water and sanitation services in Zimbabwe’s informal urban settlements have come to this point, mainly due to the interacting forces of politics. These have influenced policy processes on decision-making, formulation and implementation of sanitation policies for informal settlements. Despite the political origins of several informal settlements, there is a notable absence of practical policies to tackle the issues posed by this development and a lack of institutions capable of instigating the plans needed for change.

No description available.

A transformação do manguezal em aglomerados subnormais com diferentes características construtivas (palafitas e imóveis consolidados) redunda não só em problemas de saneamento básico e ambiental, mas também, na degradação de um valioso ecossistema. O conhecimento das diferenças sanitárias dos distintos nichos de estudo, e a comparação da qualidade de vida e saúde das populações residentes nesses locais com a realidade de moradores da área convencional, proporciona um panorama das condições insalubres às quais estão expostos. A compreensão da dinâmica construtiva, das deficiências presentes no saneamento básico e ambiental, a percepção das pessoas em relação às barreiras e condições sanitárias, e a constatação do desconhecimento dos habitantes quanto à possível redução dos impactos ambientais negativos à sua saúde e à qualidade de vida são parte dos resultados deste estudo. Enquanto persistir a necessidade dessas populações residirem em áreas com urbanização precária ou inexistente, há que se proporcionar soluções que minimizem a sua vulnerabilidade à ocorrência de agravos, ressaltando-se a implantação de saneamento, com ênfase na implementação de barreiras sanitárias não estruturadas, garantindo, assim, melhorias nas condições de vida e saúde dos habitantes dessas áreas. / The transformation of mangrove in substandard clusters with different design characteristics (stilts and consolidated properties) results not only in problems of basic sanitation and environment but also in the degradation of a valuable ecosystem. Knowing the health differences of the different niches of study and the comparison of quality of life and health of populations living in those places with the reality of residents of conventional area provides an overview of the unsanitary conditions to which they are exposed. Understanding the constructive dynamics of the deficiencies present in the basic sanitation and in the environment as well as the evidence of the ignorance of people about the possibility of promoting the reduction of negative environmental impacts to their health and quality of life are part of the results of this study. While there is a need for such populations reside in areas with poor or nonexistent, urbanization, there must be provided solutions to minimize their vulnerability to the occurrence of injuries, emphasizing the implementation of basic sanitation, with efforts on the implementation of unstructured sanitary barriers , ensuring thus , improvements in living conditions and health of the inhabitants of these areas.

Levando em consideração que a piscina é um elemento necessãrio à saúde da comunidade e que a água, reservada nesses tanques, pode veicular agentes etiolológicos de doenças, procurou-se estudar as condições sanitárias de piscinas de uso coletivo de Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brasil. Com a finalidade de realizar análises físico-químicas e bacteriológicas, pesquisas de leveduras, algas e amebas de vida livre, foram obtidas 336 amostras, em quatro coletas de cada piscina, durante o periodo de 09 de agosto de 1981 a 27 de junho de 1982. As amostras foram coletadas da água e do raspado das paredes. De modo geral, com base nos resultados conseguidos, constatou-se que as piscinas não mantêm os de cloro suficientes à desinfecção. Em algumas foram registrados altos índices de bactérias, presença de algas nas paredes, bem como a ocorrência de leveduras e de amebas de vida livre potencialmente patogênicas. É importante assinalar a presença destes protozoários, face aos recentes registros de casos de meningoencefalite a eles associados. Conclui-se que há necessidade de tratamento adequado da água, treinamento especializado dos operadores e prática de principias básicos de educação em saúde. Recomenda-se o estabelecimento de legislação pertinente. / Considering that a swimming pool is a necessary item for the public health and that the water in such pools may contain aetiological agents of diseases, we sought to study the sanitary conditions of public swimming pools in Campo Grande, Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. With the objective of making physical-chemical and bacteriological analyses, yeast, algae and free-living amoebae researches, we obtained 336 samples in four samplings, from august 9, 1981 to june 27, 1982. The samples were collected from the water and from the walls. Generally, we observed that chlorine levels necessary for desinfection were not usually maintained in the swimming pools. In some of them high bacterial levels and algae on the walls were detected, as well as the ocurrence of yeast and potencially pathogenic free-living amoebae. It is important to focus the presence of these protozoa on occount of the recent occurrence of primary amoebic meningoencephalitis cases. In conclusion, there is the necessity of adequate treatment of the water, specialized training of the people who deal with it and the practice of the basic principles of health education. We recommend the stablishment of a legislation concerning this matter.