Research Article Awareness of Environmental Change, Climate Variability, and Their Role in Prevalence of Mosquitoes among Urban Dwellers in Southern Ghana Precious Agbeko Dzorgbe Mattah , 1,2 Godfred Futagbi, 3 and Memuna Mawusi Mattah 4 1 Institute of Environment and Sanitation Studies (IESS), University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana 2 Centre for Coastal Management (CCM), University of Cape Coast, Cape Coast, Ghana 3 Department of Animal Biology and Conservation Science, University of Ghana, Legon, Ghana 4 Department of Environment and Development Studies, Central University, Accra, Ghana Correspondence should be addressed to Precious Agbeko Dzorgbe Mattah; pmattah@ucc.edu.gh Received 29 July 2017; Revised 12 February 2018; Accepted 1 April 2018; Published 7 May 2018 Academic Editor: Suminori Akiba Copyright © 2018 Precious Agbeko Dzorgbe Mattah et al. Tis is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Tis study evaluates the extent to which urban residents of Accra and Sekondi- Takoradi (all of southern Ghana) were aware of environment and climate-related variability. A total of 150 questionnaires were given to adults of 40 years and above who lived in the cities for at least 35 years. SPSS version 16 was used to process the data. Results show that all respondents in Accra Metropolitan Area (AMA) and 96% of them in Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolitan Area (STMA) noted the deteriorating vegetation cover over the cities. Similarly, 93% and 83% of them in AMA and STMA, respectively, observed that land use pattern of the two cities has changed considerably. Tere was positive and statistically signifcant correlation between respondents’ educational attainment and their awareness of changes in land use/land cover ( = 0.18,  = 140,  = 0.03). Also, 71% in AMA and 89% in STMA stated that temperature of the cities had been increasing over the years. In all, 82.9% of the respondents mentioned that they had problem with the increasing population of mosquitoes. Respondents demonstrated ample knowledge of environment and climate variability and should be engaged in preventing further environmental degradation. Te top-down approach to environmental issues has failed; the bottom-up approach to environmental maintenance is needed. 1. Introduction Rapid urbanization and climate variability are two important phenomena afecting human development and well-being in the 21st century [1]. Whether separately or combined, these phenomena pose devastating threats to all societies especially those in less developed countries [1, 2]. Rapid urbanization for example, has numerous environmental efects which are felt at diferent but interconnected scales. Te scales range from those that afect the home to those that operate at regional or continental levels [2–4]. At the regional or con- tinental level, efects such as inducement of climate change [5, 6], deterioration of water quality [7, 8], increase in air pollution [9], and the destruction of the natural habitat and ecosystems [10] have been noted. Among the efects associated with the home are the numerous health-related issues mostly experienced by poor urban households. Poor living conditions in rapidly urbanized environments encour- age the prevalence and proliferation of pathogens and vectors that cause many debilitating and endemic diseases [2, 3]. Climate variability, on the other hand, may be responsible for droughts, erratic rainfalls, foods, storm surges, temperature rise, and sea level rise that ofen results in the destruction of human habitats especially urban areas [1]. In fact, cities of Africa are reportedly among the most vulnerable in terms of exposure, sensitivity, and capacity to respond to climate variability-related disasters worldwide [11]. Tis is because of their limited capacity to recover from such occurrences [1]. Studies have noticed positive correlation between urban growth and environmental changes in Africa [12–14]. Accord- ing to Linard et al. [15], the list of changes associated with urban growth is endless and include land use and Hindawi Journal of Environmental and Public Health Volume 2018, Article ID 5342624, 9 pages https://doi.org/10.1155/2018/5342624