Climate Change and Health: Effect of Awareness Program on Knowledge, Attitudes and Practices of Community Dwelling Elderly

Background: Climate change is the biggest global health threat of the 21st century with both
direct and indirect effects on human health especially for vulnerable groups as elderly. So,
it's important to raise their awareness about climate change to reduce its adverse effect on
health. Aim: To evaluate the effect of awareness program on knowledge, attitudes and
practices of community dwelling elderly regarding climate change and health. Method: A
quasi-experimental, pre and post intervention research design was implemented. A
convenience sample of 72 community dwelling elderly attending El-Amal elderly club in
Mansoura city. Tools: Five tools were used for data collection; Demographic and Health
profile structured interview sheet, Climate change knowledge questionnaire, Elderly's
attitude toward climate change self-rating scale, Elderly's self-reported practices about their
adaption towards climate change checklist and Elderly's awareness level about climate
change and its effect of health questionnaire. Results: There were significant improvement
in elderly's total mean score of knowledge, practices, attitudes and awareness after 3 months
from implementation of the awareness program than before (P=0.000**). Also, a
statistically significant strong positive correlation was found between the total knowledge
score of the studied elderly and both total practices scores, total attitudes scores and total
awareness score after implementation of the awareness program Conclusion: The awareness
program improved knowledge, attitudes and practices of community dwelling elderly about
climate change and health. Recommendations: Dissemination of developed illustrated
awareness program booklet about climate change and health to all elderly at Mansoura City
should be done