[en] Ho Chi Minh City experiences a rapid urbanization. Like any other cities in the developing countries, the increasing number of rural migrants coming to Ho Chi Minh City caused many pressures on urban management, housing and infrastructure, especially on the city drainage system as the resources of the city are limited. Consequently, the occurrence of urban floods is very high and has adverse impacts on city residents' health, including dengue hemorrhagic fever. To date, the literature review in Vietnam suggested there had been a minimum research about perception and responses of urban communities on dengue. This research aims to explore perception of people about the relationships between urban flood and dengue, the connections between social dimensions of vulnerability and appearance of dengue caused by flood hazard and prevention of health risks in the community. Observations and interviews were conducted in three flood-prone districts which have been chosen as representative of three areas variously impacted by urbanization in Ho Chi Minh City, including a rural area where urbanization just starts, a suburban area where urbanization strongly occurs and a central area where urbanization is stabilized. Empirical data were extracted from a structured questionnaire with 458 people and in-depth interviews with 12 households and six local health officers. The main quantitative and qualitative data gathering by the research team focuses on such issues as social-economic and residential characteristics of households living in the flood prone areas, people's perception on the susceptibility and severity of dengue, fact of dengue in households and flood and dengue preventive behaviour of people. The main findings show that dengue in Ho Chi Minh City has tended to increase by time and, strongly associated with urban flood, appearance and spread of dengue, is closely linked with social-economic and residential characteristics of residential community dengue perception. Many constraints still remain in the preventive behaviour of people and existing preventive health activities are not yet received the sufficient investment and concern from various social actors. Thus, the geographical distribution of dengue, shows that suburban areas characterized with poor living conditions and most impacted by flood hazard are also the ones who suffer the highest rate of dengue. To reduce the prevalence of dengue in Ho Chi Minh City requires comprehensive solutions such as orientation of urbanization management, improvement of the living condition of urban poor communities and enhancement of dengue preventive activities of the official health sector.

[fr] Hô Chi Minh-Ville est une mégapole du Vietnam qui a connu un processus d'urbanisation rapide et anarchique au même titre que les autres mégapoles des pays en développement. L'augmentation du nombre de migrants ruraux qui viennent à Hô Chi Minh-Ville a mis la pression sur les services en charge de la gestion urbaine en général, de celle des infrastructures, et tout particulièrement de celle du système de drainage de la ville. Ceci a pour conséquence l'apparition d'inondations en ville dont les effets sont néfastes pour la santé des habitants, en particulier la prolifération des moustiques qui sont les vecteurs de la fièvre hémorragique virale. Notre recherche vise à explorer la perception qu'ont les gens de la relation de cause à effet qui peut exister entre les inondations et la dengue. Nos études ont porté sur trois districts périodiquement inondés représentant trois zones affectées différemment par l'urbanisation à Hô Chi Minh-Ville. Nous avons réalisé 458 questionnaires et 18 entretiens multiples semi-directifs de ménages touchés par la dengue. Questionnaires et entretiens nous ont également aidés à appréhender la perception que peuvent avoir les habitants de la gravité de la dengue et de leur sensibilité à celle-ci, ainsi que leur comportement face aux mesures de prévention mises en œuvre dans les trois zones étudiées.