Review: Domestic hygiene and diarrhoea – pinpointing the problem

Abstract

SummaryImproving domestic hygiene practices is potentially one of the most effective means of reducing the global burden of diarrhoeal diseases in children. However, encouraging behaviour change is a complex and uncertain business. If hygiene promotion is to succeed, it needs to identify and target only those few hygiene practices which are the major source of risk in any setting. Using biological reasoning, we hypothesize that any behaviours which prevent stools from getting into the domestic arena, the child's main habitat, are likely to have a greater impact on health than those practices which prevent pathogens in the environment from being ingested. Hence safe stool disposal, a primary barrier to transmission, may be more important than hand-washing before eating, which constitutes a secondary barrier, for example. We review the epidemiological evidence for the effect of primary and secondary barrier behaviours and suggest that it supports this conclusion. In the absence of local evidence to the contrary, hygiene promotion programmes should give priority to the safe disposal of faecal material and the adequate washing of hands after contact with adult and child stools.

Iron oxide amended biosand filters for virus removal

“…Turbidity of the groundwater and the final effluent was0.25 and 0.7 NTU as measured by a Hach Turbidity Meter 43900. RESULTS 3 …”

“…Influent and effluent pH was between 7.1 and 8.2 with an average alkalinity of 22.5 mg/L as CaCO 3 . DO was reduced in the filters but always remained above 1.01 mg/L.…”

“…As a result, 3575 million people die each year from water-related diseases [2]. While it is not possible to quantify the proportion of deaths directly due to unsafe drinking water and not attributed to other fecal-oral transmission routes [3], access to clean drinking water and proper sanitation can provide substantial improvements in health [4,5]. Point-of-use (POU) water treatments, which allow the purification of water at the point of consumption rather than at a centralized location, allow water quality to be improved at the household scale [6].…”

What Works in Fighting Diarrheal Diseases in Developing Countries? A Critical Review

“…Hands are a common vector for the transmission of fecal -oral diseases (Curtis, Cairncross, and Yonli 2000). Handwashing with soap after defecation, after cleaning children, and before and after food handling can interrupt this diarrheal disease transmission path.…”

Doktor Muda Competencies: Self-efficacy and Hand Washing Demonstration Skill among School Children in Malaysia

“…In order to nurture a healthy, intelligent and active pupil; efforts are needed to empower them so that they can be responsible for their own health. Therefore, hygiene promotion is the main focus of the policymakers to reduce the occurrence of infectious disease (Curtis, S. Cairncross, & R. Yondi, 2000;Te et al, 2013).…”