Sanitation Help Useless without Education
Published on by Water Network Research, Official research team of The Water Network in Social
Sanitation Programme Currently Being Widely Implemented in Low-income Communities in India Significantly Increases Latrine Coverage,but Does Not Actually Improve Health
The sanitation intervention delivered under the terms of the centre's Total Sanitation Campaign - the world's largest sanitation initiative - provided almost 25 000 individuals in rural India with access to a latrine. However, it did not reduce exposure to faecal pathogens or decrease the occurrence of diarrhoea, parasitic worm infections, or child malnutrition.
Worldwide, around 2.5 billion people lack access to basic sanitation facilities such as a latrine, a third of whom live in India. Two-thirds of the 1.1 billion people who practise open defecation and a quarter of the 1.5 million who die every year from diarrhoeal diseases caused by poor hygiene and sanitation also live in India.
This cluster randomised trial involved 9480 households (50 951 individuals) in 100 rural villages in Odisha, with a child younger than 4 years or a pregnant woman. Households in 50 villages were randomly assigned to receive the sanitation intervention in early 2011; control villages received the intervention after a 14-month surveillance period. The intervention increased the average proportion of households in a village with a latrine from 9% to 63%, compared an increase of 8% to 12% in control villages.
However, the researchers found no evidence that the intervention protected against diarrhoea in children younger than 5 years: 7-day prevalence of reported diarrhoea was 8.8% in the intervention group (data from 1919 children) and 9.1% in the control group (1916 children). What is more, the intervention did not reduce the prevalence of parasitic worms that are transmitted via soil and can cause reduced physical growth and impaired cognitive function in children. There was also no impact on child weight or height—measures of nutritional status.
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