IWRA Proceedings

Handwashing with soap (HWWS) intervention is an affordable yet sustainable public health issue relevant for pro-poor regions such as the Upper East Region (UER) of Ghana. Improving the HWWS strategy, has become one of the key strategies for preventing the spread of many hygiene related diseases including the current deadly COVID-19. Although several HWWS interventions have been made in Ghana by successive governments and the development partners, especially the United Nations International Children's Emergency Fund (UNICEF), little is known about what influences the people’s response to such interventions so that successive initiatives and policies could be informed and guided by those influential factors. This study assessed the implementation of HWWS sensitisation programme in the pro-poor Binduri District of the UER of Ghana, funded by UNICEF. This is achieved through a survey from 127 rural communities in the district. A quantitative approach was used with regression model applied to investigate the drivers of HWWS intervention adoption or otherwise. From the post-intervention data, we find evidence that majority of households have installed HWWS facilities and are using them. Women were more tending to adopt HWWS facilities than men. Educational background, smaller household size, social status and occupation show positive influence on adoption of HWWS intervention. Age is an influential factor where the young people and older ones are adopting HWWS intervention more than  middle age group. In the study area, where women are responsible for frequently putting water in the HWWS facilities, their incline to adopt and use it more than men is expected. As policy recommendations towards a hundred percent adoption rate, the study proposes future HWWS sensitisations that target women and girls as well as people with social status and use them as community level volunteers to influence others to appreciate the importance of HWWS.