A survey on the knowledge of Environmental Health Officers in regard to the executive process of the legal item13

Background and objective: Environmental Health Officers (EHO) being essen - tial members of health systems play a key role in the prevention of disease and the environmental sanitation by consulting, inspecting, monitoring and law enforcing (if it's necessary). Protection of the environment and promotion of the community health need to enforce strict rules so that the adverse effects of environmental pollution reduced as much as possible. This study was carried out to survey the knowledge of Environmental Health Officers about the execu - tive process of legal item 13. Materials and Method: This cross-sectional study was performed in 2014, after testing the validity and reliability of questionnaire, they were filled by inspec - tors. The questions regarding the Knowledge were scored. Relationship be - tween the knowledge and demographic characteristics was analyzed by SPSS software through statistical test including paired T-Test, one-way ANOVA and Chi square test at a significant level of 0.05. Results: The mean age of 54 Environmental Health Inspectors was equal to 34.2±6.2, and their mean job experience was 10.35±7.8 years. The number of people with a good knowledge was almost equal to the number of people with poor knowledge. The highest percentage of people (33.3%) had moderate knowledge. The relationship between knowledge with employment status (p= 0.036) and knowledge with academic degree (p=0.05) were significant. Conclusion: According to the obtained results and the importance of EHO's role in the promotion of community health, it is necessary that a regular training program is structured to increase the EHO's awareness in regard to the execu- tive process of legal item13 after their employment and before their starting work. Keyword: Health literacy,Environmental Health Officer, legal item13