Abstract:
Background: Globally, an estimated 2.5 billion people lack access to improved sanitation which is more than 35% of the world’s population and about 1billion people, 15% of the world population do not have access to any kind of sanitation facility and exercise open defecation. A total of 16% of population living in urban Ethiopia do not have access to any kind of sanitation facility and exercise open defecation, of which the huge proportion lives in the slum areas.
Objectives: the objective of this study is to assess the level of practice and associated factors towards sanitation in the urban slum communities of Addis Ababa.
Methods: Community based cross-sectional study design was conducted on January 2015 in Addis Ketema, Lideta, Kirkos, and Gulelle sub cities of Addis Ababa. Using stratified sampling 636 sample households was selected and data was collected from 624 households, which is 98.1% of estimated sample size.
Results: Practice of sanitation was 43.89% and it gets higher in households found in Lideta [AOR=3.37, 95% CI=1.12-10.15, p<0.031], Kirkos [AOR= 4.97, 95% CI=1.76-14.04, p<0.002], and Gullele [AOR= 10.16, 95% CI=3.61-28.58, p<0.000] sub cities; and who own previous latrines [AOR= 6.26, 95% CI=3.01-13.01, p<0.000]. It gets lower in households who share latrine with other neighboring households [AOR= 0.08, 95% CI=0.03-0.17, p<0.000], those who own simple pit latrines [AOR= 0.02, 95% CI=0.05-0.74, p<0.016], those who didn’t receive support during the construction of their latrine, [AOR=0.004, 95% CI=0.001– 0.014, p<0.000], and those whose annual income is between 55,001 ETB and 65,000 ETB [AOR=0.15, 95% CI= 0.02– 0.88, p<0.036].
Conclusions and Recommendations: The level of practice of sanitation in the study population is low. Latrine sharing habit, not hiring sanitation facility builder/ skilled mason, and need for subsidy and support during latrine construction were found to be the main factors contributing for this low practice. Establishing well organized and responsible body at each level of administration that will incept and execute awareness and promotion activities to improve the practice of sanitation should be done using different promotion approaches.