Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Vector-Borne Disease Prevention during the Emergence of a New Arbovirus: Implications for the Control of Chikungunya Virus in French Guiana.

Knowledge, Attitude and Practices of Vector-Borne Disease Prevention during the Emergence of a New Arbovirus: Implications for the Control of Chikungunya Virus in French Guiana.

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BACKGROUND:During the last decade, French Guiana has been affected by major dengue fever outbreaks.Although this arbovirus has been a focus of many awareness campaigns, very little information is available about beliefs, attitudes and behaviors regarding vector-borne diseases among the population of French Guiana.During the first outbreak of the chikungunya virus, a quantitative survey was conducted among high school students to study experiences, practices and perceptions related to mosquito-borne diseases and to identify socio-demographic, cognitive and environmental factors that could be soderhamn ottoman cover associated with the engagement in protective behaviors.METHODOLOGY/PRINCIPAL FINDINGS:A cross-sectional survey was administered in May 2014, with a total of 1462 students interviewed.

Classrooms were randomly selected using a two-stage selection procedure with cluster samples.A multiple correspondence analysis (MCA) associated with a hierarchical cluster analysis and with an ordinal logistic regression was performed.Chikungunya was less understood and perceived as a more dreadful disease than dengue fever.The analysis identified three groups of individual protection levels against mosquito-borne diseases: "low" (30%), "moderate" (42%) and "high" (28%)".

Protective health behaviors were found to be performed more frequently among students who were female, had a parent with a higher educational status, lived in an individual house, and had a better understanding of the disease.CONCLUSIONS/SIGNIFICANCE:This study allowed us to estimate the level of protective practices against vector-borne diseases among students after the emergence of a new arbovirus.These results revealed that the adoption of protective behaviors is a multi-factorial process that depends on both sociocultural and cognitive factors.These findings may help public health g5210t-p90 authorities to strengthen communication and outreach strategies, thereby increasing the adoption of protective health behaviors, particularly in high-risk populations.