Abstract

Factors associated with avoiding public places and gatherings among crisis affected populations in Bangladesh

Min-Hee Heo¹, Jin-Won Noh², Kyoung-Beom Kim³, Huiwon Jeon⁴ (1)Department of Health Administration, Yonsei University Graduate School, South Korea, (2)Division of Health Administration, College of Software and Digital Health care Convergence, Yonsei University, South Korea, (3)Public Health Science, Graduate School, Dankook University, South Korea, (4)Department of Healthcare Management, College of Health Sciences, Youngsan University, South Korea

APHA 2022 Annual Meeting and Expo

Since August 2017, more than 860,000 of Rohingya refugees fled to Cox’s Bazar, Bangladesh have been reported. They rely heavily on humanitarian aid to meet their essential needs. And their settlement was hilly, formerly forested regions where landslides and flash floods were frequently reported during the monsoon season. These refugee communities were associated with significant increasing environmental degradation, rising prices, inducing additional pressures on communities where public services and infrastructure were limited. Since March 2020, COVID-19 pandemic and COVID-19 preventive measures have caused additional difficulties on livelihoods, accessing goods, and social services among host communities, and increased their essential needs. The developing countries like Bangladesh are needed effective actions due to their fragile economic, educational and health status resulting in the COVID-19 overwhelming impact. However, in the context of high population density and lower-middle-income countries like Bangladesh preventive measures such as implementing social distancing are challenging strategy.
This study analyzed 1,053(Refugee=836, Host=217) crisis-affected households from the 2020 Bangladesh Multi-Cluster Needs Assessment survey data. Between March to December 2020, household survey was conducted by the REACH Initiative to provide comprehensive evidence base of the diverse multi-sectoral needs among refugee populations and host communities. The independent variable was acceptance of COVID-19 preventive measures (avoiding public places and gatherings) The independent variables included demographic variables (gender and age of household head, education level of household members, number of family members), health related variables (disability in household members, access to healthcare facility by walking), household vulnerability variables (information accessibility: Food assistance, Health services). We performed sampling weighted multivariable binary logistic regression analysis using Stata/MP version 16.1.
In refugee, household with 30~59 min to reach the healthcare facility by walking were more likely to accept avoiding public places and gatherings than household with less than 15 min (OR=1.763, p=0.032). In host, household who were female headed household (OR=0.281, p=0.042) showed lower acceptance of preventive measures to avoid public places and gatherings. However, household who were elderly household head (OR=1.036, p=0.032), disabled household members (OR=3.033, p=0.001), were significantly higher acceptance of preventive measures to avoid public places and gatherings. Households with the highest educational attainment in high school were less likely to accept preventive measures to avoid public places and gatherings (OR=0.093, p=0.006).
This finding showed the characteristics and vulnerabilities of crisis-affected households who have difficulties to accept COVID-19 preventive measures avoiding public places and gatherings during the COVID-19 pandemic.