Healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) are a global concern, affecting all western hospitals, and profoundly impairing the clinical outcome of up to 15% of all hospitalized patients. Persistent microbial contamination of hospital surfaces has been suggested to contribute to HAIs onset, representing a reservoir for hospital pathogens. On the other hand, conventional chemicals-based sanitation d...

To improve food safety on farms, it is critical to quantify the impact of environmental microbial contamination sources on fresh produce. However, studies are hampered by difficulties achieving study designs with powered sample sizes to elucidate relationships between environmental and produce contamination. Our goal was to quantify, in the agricultural production environment, the relationship ...

OBJECTIVE Initiatives to monitor progress in health interventions like sanitation are increasingly focused on disparities in access. We explored three methodological challenges to monitoring changes in sanitation coverage across socio-economic and demographic determinants: (i) confounding by wealth indices including water and sanitation assets, (ii) use of individual urban and rural settings ve...

BACKGROUND Accessible improved sanitation is critical to child health, and inequities in improved sanitation can be interpreted as health inequities across socio-economic groups. From 2009 to 2011, the Chinese government invested 4.448 billion yuan for rural sanitation improvement through a 3-year health reform program. This study assesses the inequity of sanitation improvement in rural China f...

Sanitation in neighbourhood and household domains can provide primary protection against diarrhea morbidity, yet their distinct health benefits have not been succinctly distinguished and reviewed. We present here the first systematic review and meta-analysis of the distinct effect of neighbourhood and household sanitation conditions on diarrhea morbidity. We identified studies reporting the eff...

BACKGROUND A lack of access to sanitation is an important risk factor child health, facilitating fecal-oral transmission of pathogens including soil-transmitted helminthes and various causes of diarrheal disease. We conducted a meta-analysis of cross-sectional surveys to determine the impact that community-level sanitation access has on child health for children with and without household sanit...

THE GLOBAL ENVIRONMENTAL SANITATION CRISIS CANNOT BE DENIED: well over a century after the sanitary revolution in 19th century Europe, 40% of the world's population still lacks access to improved sanitation. Important lessons from the past must be applied today if the crisis is to be averted. Sanitation has suffered from a lack of prioritization for as long as it has remained the poor relation ...

Fecal-oral pathogens are transmitted through complex, environmentally mediated pathways. Sanitation interventions that isolate human feces from the environment may reduce transmission but have shown limited impact on environmental contamination. We conducted a study in rural Bangladesh to (1) quantify domestic fecal contamination in settings with high on-site sanitation coverage; (2) determine ...

INTRODUCTION Cholera still remains a significant cause of morbidity and mortality in developing countries, although comprehensive surveillance data to inform policy and strategies are scarce. METHODOLOGY A desk review of the national cholera database and zonal and districts reports was conducted. Interviews were conducted with district health management teams, health workers, and participants...