Water and Sanitation
Water and Sanitation
This is one article in a four-part PLoS Medicine series on water and sanitation. Summary Points 2.6 billion people in the world lack adequate sanitation—the safe disposal of human excreta. Lack of sanitation contributes to about 10% of the global disease burden, causing mainly diarrhoeal diseases. In the past, government agencies have typically built sanitation… Read more
Objectives. We assessed hand-washing behaviors and intentions among school children in Bogotá, Colombia, to help identify and overcome barriers to proper hygiene practices. Methods. Data on hand-washing behavior and intentions and individual and contextual factors were collected from 2042 sixth- through eighth-grade students in 25 schools in Bogotá via anonymous questionnaires. A member of the… Read more
BACKGROUND: More than 95% of neonatal deaths occur in developing countries, approximately 50% at home. Few data are available on the impact of hand-washing practices by birth attendants or caretakers on neonatal mortality. OBJECTIVE: To evaluate the relationship between birth attendant and maternal hand-washing practices and neonatal mortality in rural Nepal. DESIGN: Observational prospective cohort… Read more
Safe drinking water and hygiene are essential to reducing Kenya’s diarrhoeal disease burden. A school-based safe water and hygiene intervention in Kenya was evaluated to assess its impact on students’ knowledge and parents’ adoption of safe water and hygiene practices. We surveyed 390 students from nine schools and their parents at baseline and conducted a… Read more
In large parts of the world, a lack of home tap water burdens households as the water must be brought to the house from outside, at great expense in terms of effort and time This paper studies how such costs affect girls’ schooling in Ghana, with an analysis based on four rounds of the Demographic… Read more
Over the past decade, the child-friendly schools (CFS) model has emerged as UNICEF’s signature means to advocate for and promote quality education for every girl and boy. Child-friendly schools enable all children to achieve their full potential. As a part of a Global Capacity Development Programme on CFS, UNICEF has developed the Child Friendly Schools… Read more
The following section provides an executive summary of this paper, highlighting the key findings in relation to the priority areas identified by DFID. The paper sets out the methods for this review and the approach for assessing the strength of evidence. The different bodies of evidence reviewed in this paper have been graded as ‘good’,… Read more
Despite economic growth, government latrine construction, and increasing recognition among policy-makers that it constitutes a health and human capital crisis, open defecation remains stubbornly widespread in rural India. Indeed, 67% of rural Indian households in the 2011 census reported defecating in the open. We present evidence from new survey data collected in villages in five… Read more
Evidence and comments suggest that CLTS has been successful in some cases in Africa, however it is difficult to find strong data to support this. Claims to have achieved Open Defecation Free (ODF) status have often been exaggerated and estimates of numbers of ODF communities inflated. Verification systems need to be improved. Another problem is… Read more
Nutrition interventions in schools and for school age children are covered in sections 2 and 3. These sections look at general school health and nutrition programmes, micronutrients, school feeding, de-worming, nutrition interventions for school age children, improved hygiene, cash transfers, zinc supplementation and adolescent nutrition. Information on nutrition interventions for children under 2 years old… Read more
This report provides information on which methods have worked well to improve access to education for girls in Islamic countries. The report covers the following areas: Conditional cash transfers to girls- Evaluation results from programes include examples from Bangladesh, Punjab, Yemen and Nigeria. All showed increased female enrolment. Women teachers increasing girls’ attendance- Information was… Read more