Community Health Volunteer's Training Manual - Population Council

Unit 2
Disease Prevention and Environmental
Sanitation
Introduction
Disease Prevention and Environmental Sanitation
There is a saying that, “When you are healthy, you are rich.” How do you understand this?
It means that when we are healthy, we can work and produce wealth for ourselves and for
our nation. When people are sick they cannot even perform social functions like attending
durbars or funerals. Fortunately, much ill-health in Ghana can be prevented. Some of the
major causes of preventable ill-health in our communities are malaria, diarrhoea and acute
respiratory infection or chest infection.
How many of you have ever had or heard of diseases such as malaria or diarrhoea? Indeed,
it is rare to find anyone in Ghana who has never had an episode of malaria fever, because
in Ghana, it is the disease that affects and kills people most. As a volunteer you have an
important task in assisting your community to prevent these diseases. This unit prepares you
to perform effective health promotion and disease prevention activities in your community.
Unit Objectives Unit Topics
By the end of this unit participants will be able to: 1. Common Community Health Problems
1. Describe methods of preventing common
diseases
2. Environmental Sanitation and Hygiene
2. Communicate health information for healthy
living
Keywords and phrases
Morbidity, mortality, environmental management, breeding sites, preventable
Topic 1 Common Community Health Problems
What are some of the common diseases you have in your communities? What causes them
and what can you, as volunteer can, do? Our first brainstorming session will talk about these
diseases.
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