Correction: Drivers of menstrual material disposal and washing practices: A systematic review.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.

Comparative sanitation data from high-frequency phone surveys across 3 countries.

With less than half of the world's urban population having safely managed sanitation due to the high cost and difficulty of building sewers and treatment plants, many rely on off-grid options like pit latrines and septic tanks, which are hard to empty and often lead to illegal waste dumping; this research focuses on container-based sanitation (CBS) as an emerging off-grid solution. Off-grid sanitation refers to waste management systems that operate independently of centralized infrastructure and CBS is a service providing toilets that collect human waste in sealable containers, which are regularly emptied and safely disposed of. These data relate to a project investigating CBS in Kenya, Peru, and South Africa, focusing on how different user groups access and utilize sanitation - contrasting CBS with other types.

Experiences of children's self-wetting (including urinary incontinence) in Cox's Bazar's Rohingya refugee camps, Bangladesh.

Self-wetting is the leakage of urine, either due to the medical condition of urinary incontinence (UI), or because a person does not want to, or cannot, access a toileting facility in time. This study explored the attitudes towards self-wetting and experiences of children (aged five to 11), their caregivers, community leaders and humanitarian practitioners in the Rohingya refugee camps in Cox's Bazar, Bangladesh. We particularly focused on how water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and protection interventions might assist in improving these experiences.

Exploring community insights on antimicrobial resistance in Nepal: a formative qualitative study.

Background: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is the process by which microbes evolve mechanisms to survive the medicines designed to destroy them i.e. antimicrobials (AMs).

Addressing antimicrobial resistance through community engagement: a framework for developing contextually relevant and impactful behaviour change interventions.

Background: Community engagement (CE) interventions often explore and promote behaviour change around a specific challenge. Suggestions for behaviour change should be co-produced in partnership with the community. To facilitate this, it is essential that the intervention includes key content that unpacks the challenge of interest via multiple sources of knowledge.

Understanding children's experiences of self-wetting in humanitarian contexts: An evaluation of the Story Book methodology.

Little is known about how children in humanitarian contexts experience self-wetting. Children can wet themselves due to having the medical condition of urinary incontinence (the involuntary leakage of urine), or due to them not wanting to or not being able to use the toilet facilities available (social or functional incontinence). Self-wetting is a global public health challenge: the physical health of children can suffer; they can miss out on educational and social opportunities; they may face increased protection risks; and the emotional effect on daily life can be significantly negative.

Spanish menstrual literacy and experiences of menstruation.

There is growing recognition of the important role menstrual health plays in achieving health, education, and gender equity. Yet, stigmatisation and taboo remain present and negative emotions like fear and shame dominate the narrative when speaking about periods. This paper analyses how formal and informal menstrual education is received in Spain, to understand the role of menstrual health literacy in the way menstruation is experienced, and to identify what information would be useful to integrate into formal menstrual education.

The effects of racism, social exclusion, and discrimination on achieving universal safe water and sanitation in high-income countries.

Drinking water and sanitation services in high-income countries typically bring widespread health and other benefits to their populations. Yet gaps in this essential public health infrastructure persist, driven by structural inequalities, racism, poverty, housing instability, migration, climate change, insufficient continued investment, and poor planning. Although the burden of disease attributable to these gaps is mostly uncharacterised in high-income settings, case studies from marginalised communities and data from targeted studies of microbial and chemical contaminants underscore the need for continued investment to realise the human rights to water and sanitation.

Drivers of menstrual material disposal and washing practices: A systematic review.

Background: Disposal and washing facilities and services for menstrual materials are often designed based upon technical specifications rather than an in-depth understanding of what drives peoples' choices of practices.

Objectives And Data Sources: This systematic review identified and summarised the main behavioural drivers pertaining to the choice of disposal and washing practices of menstrual materials through the thematic content analysis and study appraisal of 82 publications (80 studies) on menstrual health and hygiene published since 1999, reporting the outcomes of primary research across 26 countries.

Results: Disposal and washing behaviours are primarily driven by the physical state of sanitation facilities; however, this is intrinsically linked to taboos surrounding and knowledge of menstruation.

Experiences of menstruation in high income countries: A systematic review, qualitative evidence synthesis and comparison to low- and middle-income countries.

Background: There is growing recognition of the importance of menstruation in achieving health, education, and gender equality for all. New policies in high income countries (HICs) have responded to anecdotal evidence that many struggle to meet their menstrual health needs. Qualitative research has explored lived experiences of menstruating in HICs and can contribute to designing intervention approaches.

Menstrual health and hygiene among Indigenous Australian girls and women: barriers and opportunities.

Health inequities inhibit global development and achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. One gendered health area, Menstrual Health & Hygiene (MHH), has received increasing attention in Low- and Middle-Income Countries as a barrier to health, wellbeing, and gender equity. Recent anecdotal evidence in Australia highlights that MHH also present challenges to High Income Countries, particularly among underrepresented populations, such as Indigenous Australian peoples, people from low socio-economic backgrounds, or communities that are remotely located.

A qualitative exploration of menstruation-related restrictive practices in Fiji, Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea.

Attitudes and beliefs about menstruation can place restrictions on menstruating women and girls, limiting their ability to fully participate in community life, education and employment. This paper presents evidence on menstruation-related beliefs contributing to restrictive practices in Papua New Guinea (PNG), Solomon Islands (SI) and Fiji. Focus group discussions and interviews were undertaken with 307 adolescent girls, women and men in a rural and urban site in each country.

A Transdisciplinary Approach to Managing Emerging and Resurging Mosquito-Borne Diseases in the Western Pacific Region.

Mosquitoes transmit a number of harmful diseases that have an impact on local communities and visitors, and many pose a threat to neighboring countries. As federal monitoring budgets shrink across the world, the increasing importance of citizen scientists in monitoring and identifying invasive species, as well as acting to prevent these diseases, are discussed. Examples of past mosquito management programs are provided, and future directions are discussed with an emphasis on the Western Pacific Region.

Development of Toxicological Risk Assessment Models for Acute and Chronic Exposure to Pollutants.

Alert level frameworks advise agencies on a sequence of monitoring and management actions, and are implemented so as to reduce the risk of the public coming into contact with hazardous substances. Their effectiveness relies on the detection of the hazard, but with many systems not receiving any regular monitoring, pollution events often go undetected. We developed toxicological risk assessment models for acute and chronic exposure to pollutants that incorporate the probabilities that the public will come into contact with undetected pollution events, to identify the level of risk a system poses in regards to the pollutant.

Inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene in the South Pacific: how might it be impacting children?

It is detrimental to anyone's health to live with conditions of inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH). Research suggests that the impact is greatest on children, and that poor WaSH conditions during the formative years can lead to decreased physical, mental and social well-being throughout one's life. Little research has investigated how such poor WaSH conditions are negatively impacting children in the South Pacific region, and hence contributing to disease and social burden.

Development of a new risk-based framework to guide investment in water quality monitoring.

An innovative framework for optimising investments in water quality monitoring has been developed for use by water and environmental agencies. By utilising historical data, investigating the accuracy of monitoring methods and considering the risk tolerance of the management agency, this new methodology calculates optimum water quality monitoring frequencies for individual water bodies. Such information can be applied to water quality constituents of concern in both engineered and natural water bodies and will guide the investment of monitoring resources.

Application of hydrogen peroxide for the removal of toxic cyanobacteria and other phytoplankton from wastewater.

Phytoplankton blooms containing elevated levels of cyanobacteria are common in wastewatertreatment plants. Microcystis aeruginosa, the most common freshwater cyanobacterial species, produces the hepatotoxin microcystin, which is a threat to human and environmental health. Blooms also affect the viability of treating and reusing water and cause problems when detritus accumulates in pipe and pumping delivery infrastructure.