The Quality of The Performance of The Residential Environment in Preserving the Human Health and Its Suitability for Home Quarantine During the Pandemic of The Emerging Coronavirus (Covid-19) In A Sample of Families in Alexandria City

Document Type : Original Article

Author

Professor, Department of Home Economics - Faculty of Agriculture (El Shatby) - Alexandria University

Abstract

The main objective of this research was to determine the degree of the quality of the performance of the residential environment in preserving human health and its suitability for home quarantine during the pandemic of the emerging Coronavirus (covid-19). The study aim was achieved by choosing a simple random sample consisting of (100 Residential Units) from some Alexandria city districts and some resident families, who were from different economic and social backgrounds. Personal interview was used and the descriptive approach was applied. The most important results were, the degree of the quality performance of the standards of the external residential environment (the health of residential location, the supply of utilities and availability of services), and internal residential environment (Meeting the family’s needs to maintain physical, psychological and social health for its members), and both of them together were medium in the rates of (70%, 69%, 69%) respectively. As for the degree of the suitability for home quarantine in accordance with the conditions of the Egyptian Ministry of Health, it was convenient in less than half of the sample (43%) of the families’ houses, which had a one or more infected members that reached (28%) of the residents sample. Most problems that faced the families during home quarantine that related to external residential environment were unhealthy residential location was (68%), and regarding the internal residential environment, they were the unavailability of a separate room for home quarantine, the unavailability of a  separate  bathroom and bad air quality at home (71%) for each of them, poor ventilation at home, the sunlight does not enter the quarantine place, continuous water outage (64%) for each of them, and finally the continuous unavailability of antiseptics to clean up the surfaces (61%). The most important recommendations that the research has concluded are, it is necessary to spread awareness among families of the research sample by trying to upgrade the quality of the internal environment performance to preserve the health of its members physically, psychologically and socially, and adapt it to home quarantine. Also, it is recommended to draw the attention of    the officials responsible to try to upgrade the quality of the external environment performance by paving the streets and planting trees in them, especially side streets, overcoming the trash problem, improving the utilities and communications network and providing highly efficient health services.
 

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