Health Communication Strategies For Prevention And Control On Echinococcosis Among Agro-pastoralists Of The Western China

Human echinococcosis is a zoonotic parasitical disease caused by tapeworms of the genus echinococcus which are parasitic on dogs,wolves,foxes and other carnivores.China is one of the most important endemic regions of echinococcosis in the world,with highly endemic areas in the western part of China.Echinococcosis threatens both human health and products of animal husbandry.It not only brings heavy burden to the family and the society,but also has a strong impact on the development and the stability of ethnic regional social in the western China.One of the significant control measure of echinococcosis is to carry out strategies of health communication,which will help the susceptible polulation to grasp the echinococcosis-related knowledge and form good habits.It has significant meanings for the prevention and control of echinococcosis.Focusing on the agro-pastoralists who resident in the agricultural and pastoral highly endemic areas in Xinjiang,Tibet,Qinghai,Gansu and Sichuan,we randomly selected parts of the county in highly endemic areas to carry out questionnaire survey and field investigation,1213 effective questionnaires has been got.The results indicate that the awareness rate of the knowledge of prevention and treatment is only 21.3%,which is far below the expected standard that is proposed by Chinese Center For Disease Control And Prevention.Using chi-square testing,the results display that the relations between the awareness rate of the knowledge of prevention and treatment and the demographic variables,such as province,religion and language,show statistically significant.Meanwhile,the following demographic variables are not related to the awareness rate of the knowledge of prevention and treatment:gender,degree of education,marital status and whether there are patients with hydatid disease in the family.A multivariate regression model was built with five components of HBM that effect the health beliefs as variable to predict the behaviors related to the prevention and treatment of the agro-pastoralist.The results show that the model fitting result are satisfying,four of the components are significant variables including perceived costs of action,self-efficacy,perceived severity of illness or injury and perceived benefits of action.Nevertheless,the component that perceived susceptibility of illness or injury has little influence on the behaviors.Therefore,the main emphasis of the propaganda should be shifted to highlight the intervention effect in a positive ways and create a strong social atmosphere which can encourage people to prevent and control the echinococcosis.The author suggests that the government should follow these strategies below.Firstly,it's better to reduce the costs of prevention mentally and physically;and secondly,adopting the publicity strategies that is suitable for the agro-pastoralists who live in western China is beneficial for them to grasp the necessary information about the prevention and treatment of echinococcosis,and thirdly,keep popularizing mandarin in western areas inhabited by ethnic minorities,and lastly,maturing the evaluation mechanism of public propaganda and the behavior intervention is a good way to guide the executives scientifically and systematically.