Interventions to reduce water and excreta related infections in low income settings
- Resumen
- Limited access to water and excreta disposal facilities (sanitation) are associated with diarrhoea, intestinal worm infection, schistosomiasis, trachoma and many other conditions. Evaluating the health impact of water, sanitation and hygiene interventions is difficult. Even randomised trials haveattimesspectacularly failedto provideunbiasedestimates.Estimatesof non-healthbenefits and potential adverse effects in addition to the health impact data are therefore crucial for decisionmaking.Fromthisperspective, accesstoadequatewaterquantityandsanitation havethe highest priority. Low cost technologies are needed, as the wasteful approaches in industrialised countries are unaffordable and probably unnecessary in many poor settings. The failure rate of sanitation interventions is high. Successful sanitation interventions are characterised by strong political support, local leadership and community mobilisation, while only relying on limited subsidies. <br/> Such interventions can be complemented by the (mass media) promotion of personal hygiene (e.g. handwashing) which may provide additional health benefits. However, actual behaviour changehasproveddifficult intheabsenceofimprovementsinwateraccessandsanitation.Pointof- use (household) water treatment has been advocated as a very effective means to reduce diarrhoea, but -as with hygiene interventions -the estimates from randomised controlled trials maytoalargeextent beexaggerated,whileacceptabilityamongpoorpopulationsremainslow.
- Autor
- Schmidt, Wolf-Peter
- Palabras Clave
- Salud pública, Planificación sanitaria, Agua, Medicina preventiva, Enfermedades de origen hídrico, Calidad del agua
- Idioma
- Inglés
- Documentos
- Ponencia ( 10 pag, 296 Kb )
- Presentación
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- Existe un Video disponible en el Centro de Documentación