Determinants Of the Prevalence of Diarrhoea in Adolescents Attending School: A Case Study of an Indian Village School

In developing countries, including India, diarrhoea is a leading killer throughout the age pyramid. However, most of the medical literature on the determinants of diarrhoea focuses only on young children or the elderly, with health policy mainly targeting the former. Thus, the present article attempts to contribute to a better understanding of the determinants of diarrhoea in adolescents -- the understudied population. The paper develops a model using the medical literature, refines it to fit an Indian village context and tests the hypotheses identified through administering a questionnaire to 114 adolescents in an Indian village school. Results confirm the well known importance of household sanitation. In addition, the contribution of the present study is to assert that access to school toilets and usage of school toilets are also crucial. Furthermore, usage of toilets at school varies as a function of gender and the existence of a toilet in the student's household. Finally, the installation of toilets in schools is not enough, sustainable financial models must be found to maintain toilets and induce students to use them

A Ward-by-Ward Approach to Eliminating Open Defecation: Experience from Visakhapatnam, India

The Government of India launched the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) in 2014 with the ambitious aim to ensure hygiene, waste management and sanitation across the nation by the 150th anniversary of Gandhi's birth in October 2019. This document aims to build on existing knowledge by detailing how the challenge of achieving universal sanitation and Open Defecation Free (ODF) status has been approached by Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh, presenting nine stepping stones which together constitute a pathway towards citywide ODF status

Sanitation and Hygiene Behaviour Change at Scale: Understanding Slippage

As sanitation and hygiene programmes mature, the challenge shifts from bringing communities to ODF status to sustaining this status. In this context, many programmes are confronted with the issue of slippage. This concept refers to a return to previous unhygienic behaviours, or the inability of some or all community members to continue to meet all ODF criteria. This paper explores how to discern slippage nuances and patterns, strategies to address, pre-empt and mitigate it as well as alternative monitoring systems that capture the complexity of slippage more fully. The analysis and reflections are based on direct field experience, primarily from the GSF-supported programme in Madagascar. Moreover, the underpinning principle of the paper is that slippage is an expected aspect of behaviour change-oriented sanitation and hygiene interventions, especially those at scale, and not a sign of failure thereof

Pleiotropic and Novel Phenotypes in The \u3cem\u3eDrosophila\u3c/em\u3e Gut Caused by Mutation of \u3cem\u3eDrop-Dead\u3c/em\u3e

Normal gut function is vital for animal survival, and deviations from such function can contribute to malnutrition, inflammation, increased susceptibility to pathogens, diabetes, neurodegenerative diseases, and cancer. In the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, mutation of the gene drop-dead (drd) results in defective gut function, as measured by enlargement of the crop and reduced food movement through the gut, and drd mutation also causes the unrelated phenotypes of neurodegeneration, early adult lethality and female sterility. In the current work, adult drd mutant flies are also shown to lack the peritrophic matrix (PM), an extracellular barrier that lines the lumen of the midgut and is found in many insects including flies, mosquitos and termites. The use of a drd-gal4 construct to drive a GFP reporter in late pupae and adults revealed drd expression in the anterior cardia, which is the site of PM synthesis in Drosophila. Moreover, the ability of drd knockdown or rescue with several gal4 drivers to recapitulate or rescue the gut phenotypes (lack of a PM, reduced defecation, and reduced adult survival 10–40 days post-eclosion) was correlated to the level of expression of each driver in the anterior cardia. Surprisingly, however, knocking down drd expression only in adult flies, which has previously been shown not to affect survival, eliminated the PM without reducing defecation rate. These results demonstrate that drd mutant flies have a novel phenotype, the absence of a PM, which is functionally separable from the previously described gut dysfunction observed in these flies. As the first mutant Drosophila strain reported to lack a PM, drd mutants will be a useful tool for studying the synthesis of this structure

Feeding and defecation behavior of Triatoma rubida (Uhler, 1894) (Hemiptera: Reduviidae) under laboratory conditions, and its potential role as a vector of chagas disease in Arizona, USA

Chagas disease is caused by the parasite Trypanosoma cruzi, which is transmitted to humans by blood-sucking triatomine insects. This disease is endemic throughout Mexico and Central and South America, but only a few autochthonous cases have been reported in the United States, despite the fact that infected insects readily invade houses and feed on humans. Competent vectors defecate during or shortly after feeding so that infective feces contact the host. We thus studied the feeding and defecation behaviors of the prevalent species in southern Arizona, Triatoma rubida. We found that whereas defecation during feeding was frequent in females (93%), it was very rare in immature stages (3%), and absent in males. Furthermore, more than half of the immature insects that exhibited multiple feeding bouts (62%) defecated during interruptions of feeding, i.e., while likely on or near the host. These results indicate that T. rubida potentially could transmit T. cruzi to humans.Fil: Reisenman, Carolina Esther. University of Arizona; Estados UnidosFil: Gregory, Teresa. University of Arizona; Estados UnidosFil: Guerenstein, Pablo Gustavo. Provincia de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Universidad Autónoma de Entre Ríos. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Santa Fe. Centro de Investigaciones Científicas y Transferencia de Tecnología a la Producción; ArgentinaFil: Hildebrand, John. University of Arizona; Estados Unido

What Influences Open Defecation and Latrine Ownership in Rural Households?: Findings from a Global Review

In this review, the Water and Sanitation Program of the World Bank identifies commonalities and differences across sanitation market research studies it has conducted in eight countries since 2006 to determine factors that affect sanitation behaviors. Three specific behaviors -- open defecation, acquisition of toilets, and improvement of latrines -- are covered

What Works at Scale? Distilling the Critical Success Factors for Scaling Up Rural Sanitation

This paper is based on the Knowledge Sharing Forum of the same name. It examines the conditions for success in sanitation programs and strategies that lead to robust implementation in various countries

Progress on Sanitation and Drinking-Water 2010 Update

This report by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Program for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP) confirms that advances continue to be made towards greater access to safe drinking-water. Progress in relation to access to basic sanitation is however insufficient to achieve the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) target to halve, by 2015, the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking-water and basic sanitation. The information presented in this report includes data from household surveys and censuses completed during the period 2007-2008. It also incorporates datasets from earlier surveys and censuses that have become available to JMP since the publication of the previous JMP report in 2008. In total, data from around 300 surveys and censuses covering the period 1985-2008, have been added to the JMP database

Impact Evaluation of a Large-Scale Rural Sanitation Project in Indonesia

Total Sanitation and Sanitation Marketing (TSSM) is the Indonesian component of World Bank Water and Sanitation Program's Scaling Up Rural Sanitation initiative. The approach consists of raising awareness of the problems of open defecation; marketing sanitation products; and supporting policies, financing, training, and regulations that are conducive to these efforts. Therefore, desired outcomes of the program include changes in perception of the consequences of poor sanitation, toilet construction and access to improved sanitation, reduction in open defecation, and child health outcomes. This impact evaluation assesses these results using a randomized controlled trial (RCT), and unlike many RCTs that are carried out on pilot programs, it looks at an intervention that has been implemented at scale and led by the government under real-world conditions, providing more reliable estimates. TSSM is associated with sanitation improvements overall, particularly among wealthier households that had no sanitation prior to the intervention