Evaluation of the Healthy Village Program in Kapit District, Sarawak, Malaysia

has a large population of ethnic minor-ities who live in longhouses in remote rural areas where pov-erty, non-communicable diseases, accidents and injuries, environmental hazards and communicable diseases all con-tribute to a lower quality of life than is possible to achieve in these regions. To address these issues and improve the qual-ity of life for longhouse people, the Kapit Divisional Health Office implemented the World Health Organization’s Healthy Village programme in 2000. An evaluation was undertaken in 2003 to determine physical and behavioural changes resulting from the programme. The main changes evaluated were those involving smoking habits, exercise habits, health screening, fire safety, environmental improve-ments and food preparation and hygiene. A qualitative evaluation was conducted using participant observation and key-informant interviews, focus groups and observa-tion. Results indicate that the programme is inspiring changes in various behavioural and physical characteristics of the study population. It is clear that the Healthy Village programme is a widely accepted way of improving health outcomes in longhouses, and that it is succeeding in making beneficial health changes. Key words: healthy village; evaluation; Sarawak; longhouse; rura