WASHplus Weekly – World Pneumonia Day 2012

Issue 78 November  9, 2012 | Focus on World Pneumonia Day 2012

World Pneumonia Day 2012 is November 12. Pneumonia is a form of acute respiratory infection that affects the lungs. According to the World Health Organization, pneumonia is the single largest cause of death in children worldwide. Every year, it kills an estimated 1.4 million children under the age of five, accounting for 18 percent of all deaths of children under five years old worldwide. 

This issue of the WASHplus Weekly contains resources on environmental risk factors that increase a child’s susceptibility to pneumonia. These include: indoor air pollution caused by cooking and heating with biomass fuels (such as wood or dung); living in crowded homes; and parental smoking. Also included are recent resources on hand washing, ventilation, and other techniques to prevent pneumonia.

Preventing sanitation failure by using evidence-based behaviour change

Mass media campaign with loudspeaker rickshaw, Bangladesh. Photo: Eawag

Evidenced-based methods are more cost effective than traditional NGO awareness raising approaches to ensure sustained behaviour change in the WASH sector, says environmental psychologist Prof. Hans-Joachim Mosler.

Prof. Mosler

Two of his presentations on evidence-based behaviour change are now available online.  An accompanying guideline for behaviour change [1] was published in June 2012.

Mosler begins his first presentation with examples of failed sanitation and water projects. What they have in common is that they focus on hardware and neglect behaviour change. In one striking study, the construction of new school latrines actually increased health risks among girls because hygiene behaviour did not improve [2].

Peace Corps/Peru – Build Your Own Soap Dispenser

Got Soap? A Volunteer in Peru put together this great tutorial on how to build your own soap dispenser.

• Link with photos

Materials : 2 liter soda bottle, 3 liter soda bottle, 1 “closet bolt” or other bolt (1/4”x 2”), 5 of ¼” nuts, 2 rubber washers, Africano contact glue, screw(s) to attach holder to wall. Drill & bit. 

Remove bottle labels and cut off both bottle bottoms. Cut off top of the 3 L bottle, about 2” from cap, so that it creates a 2” diameter hole.

Mount the inverted 3L bottle on a wall or suspend by string as standard Tippy Tap.

Drill a clean 3/8” hole in the center of the 2 L cap. Smooth edges with steel wool or sandpaper.

Plunger assembly: Thread all nuts up to the bolt head, glue one rubber washer to inside of cap and the other to underside of bolt head (or nut), (contact cement MUST be slightly dry before assembly). Slide open end of bolt through cap hole and thread on bolt cap.

Put the cap on the 2L bottle and insert entire unit into the 3L holder.
Fill with liquid soap (thicker the better). You may coat the 2 washer contact surfaces with Vaseline for better seal.

WASH by numbers: the latest on cost benchmarks, economic returns and handwashing

One of the most quoted WASH statistics was recently “downgraded”. For every $1 invested in water and sanitation, not $8 but “only” $4 is returned in economic returns through increased productivity. This recalculation [1], says the World Health Organization, is mainly a result of higher investment cost estimates and the more complete inclusion of operation and maintenance (O&M) costs.

Providing a better insight into O&M costs has been one of the achievements of the WASHCost project of the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre. WASHCost has published minimum benchmarks for costing sustainable basic WASH services in developing countries [2]. The project collected data from Burkina Faso, Ghana, Andhra Pradesh (India) and Mozambique.

The main message is that spending less than the minimum benchmarks will result in a higher risk of reduced service levels or long-term failure. NGOs claiming that “US$20 can provide clean water for one person for 20 years” have clearly forgotten to include annual recurrent costs for operation and maintenance, capital maintenance and direct support.

The real cost for 20 years of basic water supply from a borehole and handpump would be, per person,  between US$ 20 and US$ 61 for construction plus US$ 3-6 every year to keep it working. In total for the 20 years this would amount to  US$ 80 to US$ 181 per person.

Similarly, for the most basic sanitation service, a traditional pit latrine, the combined costs would be US$ 37 – 106 per person over 20 years.

WASHplus Weekly – Global Handwashing Day 2012 Special Edition

Issue 74 October 12, 2012 | Global Handwashing Day 2012 Special Edition 

For Global Handwashing Day 2012, this Weekly issue contains a literature review of 2012 handwashing studies that was compiled by the Global Public-Private Partnership on Handwashing. The review summarizes studies on the health impacts of handwashing, handwashing behavior, hand contamination and provides recommendations for implementers of handwashing programs.

Periodic Overview of Handwashing Literature: Summary of Selected Peer-Reviewed and Grey Literature, January – June 2012. Prepared for the Global Public-Private Partnership on Handwashing with Soap (PPPHW) by: Jelena Vujcic (University at Buffalo), Pavani K. Ram (University at Buffalo), Dan Campbell (WASHplus), Katie Carroll (FHI 360).

• Link to Weekly

Togo – children design handwashing stations

Measuring WASH and food hygiene practices – post 2015 goals

A new paper reviews the case for the importance of hand, food and menstrual hygiene as candidates for post-MDG goal and target setting. Of the three themes, handwashing with soap at key times is the one which has been the subject of most research and therefore is associated with the strongest evidence base.

The paper was written by a team from the Hygiene Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM), the IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre and the International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) under contract to USAID. It is an output of the Hygiene Working Group, one of the four Post-2015 Monitoring Working Groups set up by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP). The purpose of the background paper is to stimulate and inform discussion, but not to make any claims for consensus nor suggest that any of the definitions, indicators, goals or targets proposed are final.

In 2013 the United Nations General Assembly will be asked to decide what development goals the international community should seek beyond 2015. The decision will be made based on a proposal that will be submitted to the General Assembly. This proposal will include goals, targets and indicators pertaining to water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH). The indicators proposed will reflect principles associated with the human right to drinking water and sanitation.

Related web sites:

• JMP – Hygiene Working Group
• LSHTM – Hygiene Central
• IRC – Hygiene Promotion
• ICDDR,B

Full reference:

Biran, A., et al, 2012. Background paper on measuring WASH and food hygiene practices : definition of goals to be tackled post 2015 by the Joint Monitoring Programme. London, UK, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Available at: <http://www.irc.nl/page/72911>

Sanitation Matters: Health and Hygiene – Focus on Handwashing

Sanitation Matters: Health and Hygiene – Focus on Handwashing, April 2012 issue

• (Full-text) pdf

Water Information Network, South Africa.

Contents: 

• A Tool For Measuring The Effectiveness Of Handwashing 3-7
• Five Best Practices Of Hygiene Promotion Interventions In the WASH Sector 8-9
• Washing Your Hands With Soap: Why Is It Important? 10-11
• Appropriate Sanitation Infrastructure At Schools Improves Access To Education 12-13
• Management Of Menstruation For Girls Of School Going Age: Lessons
• Learnt From Pilot Work In Kwekwe 14 -15
• WIN-SA Breaks The Silence On Menstrual Hygiene Management 16
• Joining Hands To Help Keep Girls In Schools 17
• The Girl-Child And Menstrual Management :The Stories Of Young Zimbabwean Girls. 18-19
• Toilet Rehabilitation At Nciphizeni JSS And Mtyu JSS Schools 20 – 23

Factors determining the effectiveness of Oxfam’s public health promotion approach in Haiti

Factors determining the effectiveness of Oxfam’s public health promotion approach in Haiti, 2012.

• Download Full-text (pdf)

Nadja Contzen, Hans-Joachim Mosler. Eawag.

In response to the devastating Earthquake of January 12th 2010 and the cholera outbreak of October of that same year Oxfam Great Britain, Oxfam Quebec and Intermón Oxfam conducted public health promotion and cholera response in Haiti. Different promotion activities were applied which aimed at changing hygiene behavior by changing perceptions and beliefs about healthy behaviors amongst people affected by crisis.

In February 2011 four Oxfam affiliates in Haiti in partnership with a team of behavior change researchers from Eawag launched the present research project to do an in-depth evaluation of the promotional activities that had been conducted with the goal of further improving the WASH situation for people in Haiti and worldwide by understanding how to make hygiene promotion more effective. The main focus of the research project was around the question which specific promotion activities were strongly associated with perceptions and beliefs about handwashing with soap and were thus capable of changing handwashing behavior at key times.

Key hygiene behaviours for safe water and health on World Water Day

Alana Potter, lead author of the WASHCost working paper on “Assessing hygiene cost-effectiveness“, explains the importance of changing hygiene behaviours so that improved water and sanitation can lead to the expected health benefits. She has been reviewing indicators, tools and methods that sector institutions are using to monitor and measure hygiene behaviour change and identified three key hygiene behaviours common to all of these tools. Simply put, these are hand washing, using a toilet (i.e. separation of faeces from users) and safe management of household water. These are crucial for health benefits to be derived from improved water and should be remembered on World Water Day.

Interview and video by Nicolas Dickinson, IRC International Water and Sanitation Centre
March 21, 2012

Source: IRC / WASHCost, 21 Mar 2012