Year: 2009
Type: conference-paper
Abstract: UNICEF and its government counterpart are implementing a large WASH programme with explicit\nbehavioural change goals. A baseline survey showed that handwashing with soap (HWWS) was most\nfrequent after defecation (17%) or cleaning a child’s anus (23%), and lowest around foodrelated\nevents\n(<1%). Observed practices are sharply poorer than selfreported\nbehavior. After one year, significant\nimprovement was noted in handwashing practices following contact with faecal matter, but HWWS\nbefore preparation, serving or eating of food remained stubbornly low. Open defecation had declined,\nmost notably in the poorest quintile. Morbidity was not significantly different in control and intervention\nhouseholds. However, intervention households were significantly more likely to have coliformfree\nhousehold water (48%) than were control households (32%). This robust monitoring framework has\nallowed the project to understand WASH practices in the target communities in detail, and to identify\nareas of success and areas where efforts need to be redoubled.
Language: English
Subfield: Nutrition and Dietetics
Field: Nursing
Domain: Health Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W54027307