{"id":31269,"date":"2018-10-27T12:53:28","date_gmt":"2018-10-27T07:23:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blog.forumias.com\/?p=31269"},"modified":"2018-10-27T12:53:28","modified_gmt":"2018-10-27T07:23:28","slug":"can-sanitation-reduce-stunting","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/can-sanitation-reduce-stunting\/","title":{"rendered":"Can\u00a0sanitation reduce stunting?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><b><a href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/can-sanitation-reduce-stunting\/article22754713.ece\">C<\/a><\/b><b style=\"font-size: 1rem; color: #000000;\"><a style=\"font-size: 1rem; color: #000000;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/can-sanitation-reduce-stunting\/article22754713.ece\">an<\/a><\/b><a style=\"font-size: 1rem;\" href=\"http:\/\/www.thehindu.com\/opinion\/op-ed\/can-sanitation-reduce-stunting\/article22754713.ece\"><b>\u00a0sanitation reduce stunting?<\/b><\/a><\/p>\n<p><b>Context:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Impact of sanitation on stunting<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Introduction:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The results of two ambitious new trials published this year show that studying the impact of sanitation on stunting is tricky.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The trials, which implemented water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions in Bangladesh and Kenyan villages for two years, were an effort to prevent stunting seen in children under two years in developing countries.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The WASH interventions included replacing poor-quality toilets with improved ones, chlorinating drinking water, and promoting handwashing.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Outcomes of the trials:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">When the trials ended, the researchers found these children were not taller than those who did not receive these interventions.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The findings are a setback to the hypothesis that improving sanitation can thwart childhood stunting.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The new trials raise doubts about the link between sanitation and stunting in India too.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>The problem of open defecation in India:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India is the only country today in which over 50% of the rural population still defecates in the open.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Bangladesh, while close to India in population density, brought down open defecation rates from 42% in 2003 to just 1% in 2016.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Stunting:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Stunting is a complex problem.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Children in richer South Asian countries are shorter on average than those in poorer Sub-Saharan African countries, and no intervention so far has closed this gap.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Causes of stunting:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Prenatal health, breastfeeding and diet, among dozens of factors, have been implicated in stunting.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Poor sanitation plays a greater role in stunting, because faecal bacteria and parasites deprive the child of nutrition.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The problem is that most of the data which show that children in households with poor toilets are more likely to be stunted comes from descriptive studies.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Studies in Gambian:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Studies in Gambian children in the 1990s showed that intestinal inflammation, possibly caused by exposure to faecal germs, is correlated with stunting.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Among animals, baby mice infected with <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Escherichia coli<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, a faecal bacterium, grew slower, and showed signs of such intestinal inflammation when dissected.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">The study also showed that open defecation had a stronger impact on height when population density was higher, as is the case of India and Bangladesh.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Changing people\u2019s sanitation habits:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">India\u2019s Swachh Bharat Abhiyan (SBA) is an example of how difficult it is to change people\u2019s sanitation habits.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> Even though the SBA aims to eliminate open defecation by 2019, data from the 2015-16 <\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">National Family Health Survey<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> show the campaign hasn\u2019t changed much since it began.<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Almost halfway through the SBA, open defecation remained quite common in rural India and its distribution across districts looked pretty similar to 2011.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><b>Behavioural change campaigns:<\/b><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Behavioral change campaigns need to be initiated to tackle the problem.<\/span><\/b><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">In this background, the Bangladesh study is significant because it did succeed in changing participant behaviour.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It provides critical information for countries that have already eliminated open defecation.<\/span><\/li>\n<li><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">They may now want to weigh the merits of sanitation against other interventions like nutrition.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Can\u00a0sanitation reduce stunting? Context: Impact of sanitation on stunting Introduction: The results of two ambitious new trials published this year show that studying the impact of sanitation on stunting is tricky. The trials, which implemented water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) interventions in Bangladesh and Kenyan villages for two years, were an effort to prevent stunting&hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/can-sanitation-reduce-stunting\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Can\u00a0sanitation reduce stunting?<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":61,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-31269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-test-1","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704797237},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/61"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31269"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31269\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}