Health knowledge and behavior among rural residents after a heavy debris flowin Zhouqu county, Gansu province

Objective To explore health knowledge and health behaviors among rural residents after a heavy debris flowand to provide scientific basis for post-disaster health education and intervention strategies.Methods A totol of 1 120 residents aged 15 to 69 years from different villages of Zhouqu county were randomly selected.General conditions,health knowledge and awareness rate,health behavior formation rate,and ways of accessing to health knowledge were investigated with a questionnaire survey.Data were analysed with SPSS 3.0.Results The awareness rate of health knowledge in the residents was 71.64%(827/1 100),in which the awareness rate of washing hands before cook was the highest(91.82%,1 010/1 100).There were 12.00%(132/1 100)of the residents dinking water directly from river or well and 39.00%(429/1100)visiting a doctor when having the symptoms of diarrhea or fever,and 19.00%(209/1 100)not uisiting a psychological doctor when having psychological problems.Totally 59.1%(650/1 100)of the residents got the knowledge of disease prevention after the disaster and 52.45%(577/1 100)acquired disease prevention knowledge through reading posters and issued leaflets,27.64%(304/1100)through listening to explanation of health workers.Conclusion The demand of disease prevention knowledge among the residents in the disaster areas was higher than that before the disaster and the propaganda and education of health and disease prevention should be implemented in time.