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Health impacts of improved household sanitation [Quality Assurance: Sandy Cairncross and Andrew Cotton]

Author(s): Scott, Beth  |  Cairncross, Sandy  |  Cotton, Andrew

Publisher: WEDC
Place of publication: Loughborough University, UK
Year: 2006

Series: WELL Fact Sheet
Collection(s): WELL

Links:

• http://www.lboro.ac.uk/research/wedc/well/

The health benefits of improved household sanitation are broad in scope, ranging from reductions in diarrhoea, helminth infections and trachoma through reduced risk of accidents and/or sexual harassment, to enhanced psycho-social well-being afforded via such factors as improved dignity and social standing. Despite methodological issues in quantifying the health benefits of improved sanitation, there is no doubt it can have significant impact on household health. The provision and consistent use of sanitation isolates contaminated faeces from the environment breaking down the faecal-oral transmission of disease. The evidence for the protective effect of sanitation against diarrhoea is greatest, with latrines potentially reducing the diarrhoea disease by an average of 36%.

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