New members of Household Water Treatment Group from India and Ethiopia | Recently published handwashing/hygiene studiies and others
Campbell, Dan
New HWTS Group
Members
Name: Deepak Saksena, Partnership
Director-Hindustan Unilever Ltd.
Email: deepak....@unilever.com>
Comment: I have recently joined Hindustan Unilever Ltd as a
Partnership Director in their Water Division. My job is to promote the use of
Unilever's Water treament products (currently Pureit) to urban poor and rural
families by forging partnerships with global and local organizations. I look
forward to receiving your periodic newsletter and to interacting with the group
members in future.
Name: Waltaji Terfa, Public Health and Environment
National Program Officer/WHO Ethiopia Country Office
Email: walt...@et.afro.who.int
Group: http://groups.google.com/group/household-water-treatment
Recently Published Studies
1 - Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2009
Nov;81(5):882-7.
Household characteristics associated with
handwashing with soap in rural Bangladesh.
Luby SP, Halder AK,
Tronchet C, Akhter S, Bhuiya A, Johnston RB.
International Centre for
Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Dhaka, Bangladesh. sl...@icddrb.org
Handwashing with
soap prevents diarrhea and respiratory disease, but it is rarely practiced in
high-need settings. Among 100 randomly selected villages in rural Bangladesh,
field workers enrolled 10 households per village and observed and recorded
household activities for 5 hours. Field workers observed 761 handwashing
opportunities among household members in 527 households who had just defecated
or who cleaned a child's anus who had defecated. In the final multivariate
analysis, having water available at the place to wash hands after toileting
(odds ratio = 2.2, 95% confidence interval 1.3, 4.0) and having soap available
at the place to wash hands after toileting (odds ratio = 2.1, 95% confidence
interval 1.3, 3.4) were associated with washing both hands with soap after fecal
contact. Interventions that improve the presence of water and soap at the
designated place to wash hands would be expected to improve handwashing behavior
and health.
2 - Am J Public Health. 2009 Oct;99 Suppl
2:S405-11.
Experimental pretesting of hand-washing
interventions in a natural setting.
Judah G, Aunger R, Schmidt
WP, Michie S, Granger S, Curtis V.
London School of Hygiene and Tropical
Medicine, Keppel St, London WC1E 7HT, UK. gaby....@lshtm.ac.uk
OBJECTIVES: We pretested interventions derived from different domains of
behavior change theory to determine their effectiveness at increasing hand
washing with soap in a natural setting. METHODS: We installed wireless devices
in highway service station restrooms to record entry and soap use. Two text-only
messages for each of 7 psychological domains were compared for their effect on
soap-use rates. We collected data on nearly 200 000 restroom uses. RESULTS: The
knowledge activation domain was most effective for women, with a relative
increase in soap use of 9.4% compared with the control condition (P = .001). For
men, disgust was the most effective, increasing soap use by 9.8% (P = .001).
Disgust was not significantly better than the control condition for women, nor
was knowledge activation for men. Messages based on social norms and social
status were effective for both genders. CONCLUSIONS: Our data show that
unobtrusive observation of behavior in a natural setting can help identify the
most effective interventions for changing behaviors of public health importance.
The gender differences we found suggest that public health interventions should
target men and women differently.
3 - Am J Infect Control. 2009 Oct
20.
Mandatory handwashing in elementary schools reduces
absenteeism due to infectious illness among pupils: A pilot intervention study.
Nandrup-Bus I
Fredensborg County,
Denmark.
BACKGROUND: The objective of this study was to determine the
effect of mandatory, scheduled handwashing on actual absenteeism due to
infectious illness in elementary school pupils in Denmark.
METHODS: A 3-month pilot intervention study, randomized between 2 schools, was performed on 652 pupils age 5 to 15 years. The pupils at the intervention school (IS; n=290) were required to wash their hands before the first lesson, before lunch, and before going home. Those at the control school (CS; n=362) continued their usual handwashing practices. All absences due to illness were recorded, and data were analyzed statistically.
RESULTS: Multivariate analysis demonstrated a significantly reduced rate of absenteeism for the IS compared with the CS (P=.002). For girls, the rate was 1.05 periods (95% confidence interval [CI]=0.90 to 1.22) for the IS versus 1.35 (95% CI=1.26 to 1.44) for the CS. For boys, these rates were 0.87 (95% CI=0.72 to 1.05) and 1.12 (95% CI=0.92 to 1.36). An alternative approach demonstrated that the odds ratio for absence was 0.69 (95% CI=0.52 to 0.92) for the IS compared with the CS.
CONCLUSION: This study suggests that
handwashing could be an effective tool to reduce absences due to infectious
illness in elementary school pupils. A school policy regarding hand hygiene and
teaching of hand hygiene is warranted.
4 -
J Infect Dis. 2009 Oct 15;200(8):1186-93.
Effect of a
point-of-use water treatment and safe water storage intervention on diarrhea in
infants of HIV-infected mothers.
Harris JR, Greene SK, Thomas
TK, Ndivo R, Okanda J, Masaba R, Nyangau I, Thigpen MC, Hoekstra RM, Quick
RE.
Epidemic Intelligence Service, Office of Workforce and Career
Development, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, Georgia, USA.
gg...@cdc.gov
To reduce mother-to-child
transmission of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) in resource-poor settings,
the World Health Organization recommends exclusive breast-feeding for 6 months,
followed by rapid weaning if replacement feeding is affordable, feasible,
available, safe, and sustainable. In the Kisumu Breastfeeding Study (trial
registration: Clinicaltrials.gov identifier NCT00146380), infants of
HIV-infected mothers who received antiretroviral therapy experienced high rates
of diarrhea at weaning. To address this problem, mothers in the Kisumu
Breastfeeding Study were given safe water storage vessels, hygiene education,
and bleach for household water treatment. We compared the incidence of diarrhea
in infants enrolled before (cohort A) and after (cohort B)implementation of the
intervention. Cohort B infants experienced less diarrhea than cohort A infants,
before and after weaning (P < .001 and P = .047, respectively); however,
during the weaning period, there were no differences in the frequency of
diarrhea between cohorts (P = 0.89). Testing of stored water in cohort B homes
indicated high adherence (monthly range, 80%-95%) to recommended chlorination
practices. Among infants who were weaned early, provision of safe water may be
insufficient to prevent weaning-associated diarrhea.
Golden Poo Awards - Acceptance Speeches and Film Awards
What effect may events like the Global Handwashing Day’s
‘Golden Poo Awards’ held in London earlier in the month have in providing new
publicity and raising the profile of the issues with different audiences? The
event format was a competition for film animators, who produced short films on
the serious issue of sanitation and hygiene. It also hosted an international
award for sanitation and hygiene champions.
Acceptance Speach - Hygiene champions Mary Swai & Rebecca Budimu -
Tanzania
Acceptance Speach - Sanitation champion Honourable Namuyangu J
Byakatonda - Uganda
Dan Campbell, Web
Manager
Environmental Health at USAID
1611 North Kent St., Suite 300
Arlington, VA 22209
Ph:
703-247-8722
Email: dcam...@usaid.gov
Environmental Health at USAID: http://www.ehproject.org
Indoor Air Pollution Updates: http://iapnews.wordpress.com
Sanitation Updates: http://sanitationupdates.wordpress.com
Urban Health Updates: http://urbanhealthupdates.wordpress.com
Cholera Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/cholera-control
Household Water Treatment Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/household-water-treatment