Public health performance of sanitation technologies in Tamil Nadu, India: Initial perspectives based on E. coli release.

Sanitation is intended to reduce the spread and burden of diseases transmitted from excreta. Pathogen reduction from excreta before sludge or effluent discharge to the environment would seem a logical and useful performance indicator for sanitation systems. However, the relative magnitudes of pathogen release from common sanitation technologies are not well understood.

Effects of an urban sanitation intervention on childhood enteric infection and diarrhea in Maputo, Mozambique: A controlled before-and-after trial.

We conducted a controlled before-and-after trial to evaluate the impact of an onsite urban sanitation intervention on the prevalence of enteric infection, soil transmitted helminth re-infection, and diarrhea among children in Maputo, Mozambique. A non-governmental organization replaced existing poor-quality latrines with pour-flush toilets with septic tanks serving household clusters. We enrolled children aged 1-48 months at baseline and measured outcomes before and 12 and 24 months after the intervention, with concurrent measurement among children in a comparable control arm.

The true costs of participatory sanitation: Evidence from community-led total sanitation studies in Ghana and Ethiopia.

Evidence on sanitation and hygiene program costs is used for many purposes. The few studies that report costs use top-down costing methods that are inaccurate and inappropriate. Community-led total sanitation (CLTS) is a participatory behavior-change approach that presents difficulties for cost analysis.