Awareness and knowledge of environmental health among secondary school students from Mtwara town in Tanzania

Students are provided with education, including environmental health education that they develop throughout their lives and the education empowers them to become active participants in the transformation of their communities. Therefore, this study aimed to examine awareness and knowledge about environmental health issues among secondary school students from Mtwara town in Tanzania. A questionnaire survey was used to collect data. Pearson's chi-square and Pearson correlation (R) tests were used to determine whether there was a statistically significant difference between the gender and study variables. A greater proportion of students had awareness and knowledge of infectious diseases (99.8% vs. 97.1%, p=0.004, X2=9.529, OR 1.028, 95% CI 1.005 – 1.051) and non-communicable diseases (98.1% vs. 95%, p=0.031, X2 = 5.370, OR 1.033, 95% CI 1.001 – 1.067). However, awareness of the term school water, sanitation and hygiene (SWASH) was very low among all students, with no statistically significant difference (26.1% vs. 25.5%, p = 0.927). Girls had more understanding of global warming (91.7% vs. 86.2%, p=0.033) and good ventilation prevented the spread of cough and mucus (62.1% vs. 54%, p=0.041) than male students. While no statistically significant difference between students' awareness and knowledge of pollution was observed (99.5% vs. 97.9%, p=0.104), there was a higher proportion of noise and land pollution awareness among students. Female students had higher awareness of noise pollution (70.2% vs. 56.9%, p=0.001) and land pollution (86.1% vs. 78.2%, p=0.010) than their peers. The results of this study add more knowledge to the existing information on students' awareness and knowledge of environmental health problems. The study recommends that programs to disseminate information related to environmental health should be maintained to sustain high student awareness and knowledge of environmental health.