- Authors: Dean Spears, Diane Coffey
- Published in: The Lancer
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Abstract
Results of the WASH Benefits trials in Bangladesh and Kenya have been reported by Stephen Luby and colleagues1 and by Clair Null and colleagues,2 respectively. One group in each study assessed the effect on child height-for-age of “household sanitation upgrades from unimproved to improved latrines” in the child's compound. In both studies, adult latrine use was high at baseline: only about 5% of adults in each setting initially defecated in the open. The trials found that child height was not increased by upgrading sanitation facilities.
Global elimination of open defecation by 2030 is a Sustainable Development Goal (SDG). Although the results of the WASH Benefits trials are important for understanding sanitation intervention and similar programmes, we note that the results of these trials do not imply that child health would not be improved by a large transition from open defecation to latrine use, especially in a densely populated area, and that these results are consistent with existing observational data.
Based on data from four Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), the table reports illustrative regressions of child height-for-age on sanitation practices in a child's local neighbourhood, among rural children in Bangladesh (2014), Kenya (2014), and India (2005 and 2015). All regressions include controls for the child's household's wealth quintile.