Formative research for the development of baby water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions for young children in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (REDUCE program).

Background: Research exploring the unique exposure pathways to fecal pathogens for young children and innovative water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions for susceptible pediatric populations is needed to reduce the burden of diarrheal diseases and stunting globally. The Reducing Enteropathy, Diarrhea, Undernutrition, and Contamination in the Environment (REDUCE) program seeks to 1) identify exposure pathways to fecal pathogens that are significant contributors to morbidity for young children in South Kivu, Democratic Republic of the Congo, and 2) develop and evaluate scalable interventions that reduce fecal contamination and exposure from these pathways. The formative research portion of the project sought to identify feasible and acceptable WASH interventions to modify behaviors found to be associated with diarrheal disease and impaired growth in our REDUCE cohort study.