Public health practitioners increasingly agree that it is not enough to provide people with water and sanitation hardware. Numerous approaches are used to tackle the "software" which means to ensure behavior change necessary to come along with the sanitation hardware. A review of these approaches reveals several shortcomings, most importantly that they do not provide behavioral change interventions which correspond to psychological factors to be changed. This article presents a sound psychological model, which postulates that for the formation of new habitual behavior, five blocks of factors must be positive with regard to the new behavior: risk factors, attitudinal factors, normative factors, ability factors, and self-regulation factors. Standardized tools for measuring the factors in face-to-face interviews are presented, and behavioral interventions are provided for each factor block. A statistical analysis method is presented, which allows the determination of the improvement potential of each factor.

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Arsenic contamination of drinking water is a serious public health threat. In Bangladesh, eight major safe water options provide an alternative to contaminated shallow tubewells: piped water supply, deep tubewells, pond sand filters, community arsenic-removal, household arsenic removal, dug wells, well-sharing, and rainwater harvesting. However, it is uncertain how well these options are accepted and used by the at-risk population. Based on the RANAS model (risk, attitudes, norms, ability, and self-regulation) this study aimed to identify the acceptance and use of available safe water options. Cross-sectional face-to-face interviews were used to survey 1,268 households in Bangladesh in November 2009 (n = 872), and December 2010 (n = 396). The questionnaire assessed water consumption, acceptance factors from the RANAS model, and socioeconomic factors. Although all respondents had access to at least one arsenic-safe drinking water option, only 62.1% of participants were currently using these alternatives. The most regularly used options were household arsenic removal filters (92.9%) and piped water supply (85.6%). However, the former result may be positively biased due to high refusal rates of household filter owners. The least used option was household rainwater harvesting (36.6%). Those who reported not using an arsenic-safe source differed in terms of numerous acceptance factors from those who reported using arsenic-safe sources: non-users were characterized by greater vulnerability; showed less preference for the taste and temperature of alternative sources; found collecting safe water quite time-consuming; had lower levels of social norms, self-efficacy, and coping planning; and demonstrated lower levels of commitment to collecting safe water. Acceptance was particularly high for piped water supplies and deep tubewells, whereas dug wells and well-sharing were the least accepted sources. Intervention strategies were derived from the results in order to increase the acceptance and use of each arsenic-safe water option.

This Campbell Systematic Review examines the effectiveness of different approaches for promoting handwashing and sanitation behaviour change, and factors affecting implementation, in low and middle‐income countries. The review summarises evidence from 42 impact evaluations, and from 28 qualitative studies. Community‐based approaches which include a sanitation component can increase handwashing with soap at key times; use of latrines and safe disposal of faeces; and reduce the frequency of open defecation. Social marketing seems less effective. The approach mainly shows an effect on sanitation outcomes when interventions combine handwashing and sanitation components. Sanitation and hygiene messaging with a focus on handwashing with soap has an effect after the intervention has ended, but there is little impact on sanitation outcomes. However, these effects are not sustainable in the long term. Using elements of psychosocial theory in a small‐scale handwashing promotion intervention, or adding theory‐based elements such as infrastructure promotion or public commitment to an existing promotional approach, seem promising for handwashing with soap. None of the approaches described have consistent effects on behavioural factors such as knowledge, skills and attitude. There are no consistent effects on health. Plain language summary Community‐based approaches are most effective in promoting changes in hygiene practices, but sustainability is a challengeCommunity‐based approaches to promote handwashing and sanitation efforts seem to work better than social marketing, messaging and interventions based on psychosocial theory. Programs combining hygiene and sanitation measures appears to have a larger impact than either one alone. What is this review about?Diarrhoeal diseases are very common causes of death in low and middle‐income countries. Improved sanitation and hygiene reduce diarrhoea, but adoption remains a challenge.This review assesses the evidence for two questions: (1) how effective are different approaches to promote handwashing and sanitation behaviour change; and (2) what factors influence the implementation of these approaches? What studies are included?Studies of effectiveness had to be impact evaluations using an experimental or quasi‐experimental design and analytical observational studies. Implementation studies used qualitative designs.Forty‐two quantitative studies and 28 qualitative studies met the inclusion criteria. The quantitative studies were conducted in LMICs worldwide, with the majority of the studies in South Asia and Sub‐Saharan Africa. What are the main findings of this review?Community‐based approaches which include a sanitation component can increase handwashing with soap at key times; use of latrines and safe disposal of faeces; and reduce the frequency of open defecation. Social marketing seems less effective. The approach mainly shows an effect on sanitation outcomes when interventions combine handwashing and sanitation components.Sanitation and hygiene messaging with a focus on hand...

Access to improved sanitation is a key preventive measure against sanitary-related gastro-enteric diseases such as diarrhoea. We assessed the access to sanitation facilities and users' satisfaction in 50 randomly selected slums of Kampala through a cross-sectional survey conducted in 2010. A total of 1500 household respondents were interviewed. Sixty-eight per cent of the respondents used shared toilets, 20% private, 11% public toilets and less than 1% reported using flying toilets or practising open defecation. More than half of the respondents (51.7%) were not satisfied with their sanitation facilities. Determinants for satisfaction with the facilities used included the nature and type of toilet facilities used, their cleanliness, and the number of families sharing them. The study findings showed that slum dwellers had high access to sanitation facilities. However, most of them were shared and majority of the respondents were not satisfied with their facilities, primarily due to cleanliness and over demand.

Handwashing interventions are a priority in development and emergency aid programs. Evaluation of these interventions is essential to assess the effectiveness of programs; however, measuring handwashing is quite difficult. Although observations are considered valid, they are time-consuming and cost-ineffective; self-reports are highly efficient but considered invalid because desirable behaviour tends to be over-reported. Socially desirable responding has been claimed to be the main cause of inflated self-reports, but its underlying factors and mechanisms are understudied. The present study investigated socially desirable responding and additional potential explanatory factors for over-reported handwashing to identify indications for measures which mitigate over-reporting. Additionally, a script-based covert recall, an alternative interview question intended to mitigate recall errors and socially desirable responding, was developed and tested. Cross-sectional data collection was conducted in the Borena Zone, Ethiopia, through 2.5-hour observations and 1-hour interviews with the primary caregivers in households. A total sample of N = 554 was surveyed. Data were analysed with correlation and multiple regression analyses and dependent t-tests. Over-reporting of handwashing was associated with factors assumed to be involved in (1) socially desirable responding, (2) encoding and recall of information, and (3) dissonance processes. The latter two factor groups explained over-reported handwashing beyond socially desirable responding. The alternative interview question—script-based covert recall—reduced over-reporting compared to conventional self-reports. Although the difficulties involved in measuring handwashing by self-reports and observations are widely known, the present study is the first to investigate the factors which explain over-reporting of handwashing. This research contributes to the limited evidence base on a highly important subject: how to evaluate handwashing interventions efficiently and accurately.

In-house contamination of drinking-water is a persistent problem in developing countries. This study aimed at identifying critical points of contamination and determining the extent of recontamination after water treatment. In total, 81 households were visited, and 347 water samples from their current sources of water, transport vessels, treated water, and drinking vessels were analyzed. The quality of water was assessed using Escherichia coli as an indicator for faecal contamination. The concentration of E. coli increased significantly from the water source [median=0 colony-forming unit (CFU)/100 mL, interquartile range (IQR: 0–13)] to the drinking cup (median=8 CFU/100 mL; IQR: 0–550; n=81, z=−3.7, p<0.001). About two-thirds (34/52) of drinking vessels were contaminated with E. coli. Although boiling and solar disinfection of water (SODIS) improved the quality of drinking-water (median=0 CFU/100 mL; IQR: 0–0.05), recontamination at the point-of-consumption significantly reduced the quality of water in the cups (median=8, IQR: 0–500; n=45, z=−2.4, p=0.015). Home-based interventions in disinfection of water may not guarantee health benefits without complementary hygiene education due to the risk of post-treatment contamination.