摘要Background:The public knowledge and adherence to the established coronavirus disease 2019(COVID-19)pre-cautionary measures are crucial to Nigeria's war against the pandemic.Public health education on its preventive practices at the grassroots level was initially crucial to achieving a lower COVID-19 incidence in Kwara State,Nigeria.Methods:We assessed the knowledge of,and adherence to COVID-19 precautionary measures at the community level among 795 respondents from the three senatorial zones of Kwara State.Results:54.5％(433/795)of the respondents were aged between 21 and 40 years,and 45.9％(365/795)of the respondents had a bachelor's degree or higher.Study participants had a good knowledge of COVID-19,its symp-toms,and its mode of transmission.91.8％of the respondents(730/795)had a positive perception of the COVID-19 preventive measures while 96.1％(763/795)of the respondents agreed that maintaining social distance was important in curbing the COVID-19 pandemic.However,only 38％(302/795)of them used face masks and only 25.7％(204/795)of the respondents used hand sanitizers.In addition,only 31.9％(253/795)of the respondents isolated themselves when they were ill.Multi-variable logistic regression analysis revealed that education,occu-pation,gender,and ethnicity were significantly associated with positive COVID-19 preventive practices among residents of Kwara State.Civil servants were more likely(A OR:3.14;95％confidence interval[CI]:0.67 to 14.82;P=0.034)to have positive preventive attitudes than other respondents.Study participants with tertiary educa-tion and those that were Yoruba(ethnicity)were 14.81 times more likely(95％CI:4.29 to 51.05;P=0.001)and 5.19 times more likely(95％CI:1.82 to 14.84;P=0.007)to have positive attitudes towards the laid-down COVID-19 preventive measures respectively.Conclusion:The poor community adherence to the COVID-19 preventive practices could pre-dispose Kwara to more COVID-19 cases.More community engagement activities are needed to fully curb the spread of the CO VID-19.Public health education should focus on preventive measures,vaccine acceptance,and community monitoring of COVID-19.