Purpose: To evaluate existing public health intervention programs for schools to inform the variability in communicable disease prevalent rates among secondary school students in Kisumu County, Kenya.

Methods: A normative evaluation research design focusing on public health behaviour change adherence among students and school staff was adopted. For example, it was evaluated whether schools adhere to bed spacing regulations as given out in the Ministry of Education guidelines; and also whether water, sanitation and hygiene interventions are adhered to as contained in the Ministry of Health guidelines. Some of the questions answered included whether intervention strategies were in place, was the intervention reaching the target population, challenges of implementation, and what appears to be working among others. Comparisons between risk factors were made by chi-square and ANOVA using SPSS for Windows (version 15.2; Chicago, IL) software. A p value of <0.05 was considered statistically significant.

Results: Use of insecticide treated mosquito net was the best practice in malaria control among students in secondary schools. Provision of water at hand washing area was best practice for diarrhoea control while health seeking behaviour among secondary school students was the gold standard for control of the burden of communicable diseases, X2 2, 0.05 =44.42.

Conclusion: Provision of water for hand washing as a public health intervention strategy had strong evidence that the intervention strategy had effect in reduction of prevalence rates of diarrhoea, tuberculosis and pneumonia, whereas health seeking behaviour of students had a strong effect in reduction of burden of malaria, diarrhoea, tuberculosis and pneumonia (X2 4, 0.05=184.374).

Keywords: Prevalence, Intervention, Malaria, Diarrhoea, Tuberculosis, Pneumonia, Normative evaluation, Schools