Faith Atai and Poleen Kyakunzire
Bachelor of Environmental Health Science Students
Makerere University – School Of Public Health
More than 300 people from different Including students, Environmental and Public Health Practitioners, academicians, policy makers and the general public attended and presented their research at the 15th Makerere University Environmental Health Students’ Association (MUEHSA) Scientific annual Conference on the theme “Environmental Health: Building Resilient Communities And Contributing To the Sustainable Development Goals”. The Conference provided a platform for sharing various research works on several sub-themes including: pollution (air, water and soil); food security and safety; one health; Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH); environmental disasters; community health; trauma, injury and disability; technology and innovations in health. Makerere University Environmental Health Students’ Association (MUEHSA) has held this event for the last fifteen years on an annual basis.
The presentations emphasized the aspect of building resilience through sustainable disease detection and prevention approaches and innovative capacity building for households and communities; to take early actions.
The following recommendations were drawn from the conference discussions:
1. The government through the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Science, Innovation and Technology should promote innovative solutions that will solve environmental health problems. In addition, in order to achieve their particular objectives, these ministries need to offer a conducive working environment like favorable policies and seed funding.
2. Researchers need to provide adequate and evidence based data to policy makers in order for them to back up policy formulation and changes so that they are made from an informed point of view while addressing the rising health problems in our country.
3. Universities should promote student research and the findings should be shared with various stakeholders to ensure implementation.
4. The government and other implementing bodies need to strictly enforce the existing guidelines for use of pesticides. In addition, government should improve these guidelines in order to reduce the dosages ingested by consumers that tend to accumulate with time leading to adverse effects on health. This could also be improved by effective and efficient mass education of the public so that basic practices like washing of raw foods especially fruits are adopted.