Spillover Effects of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Interventions on Child Health

NCT ID: NCT02396407

Last Updated: 2016-10-26

Study Results

Results pending

The study team has not published outcome measurements, participant flow, or safety data for this trial yet. Check back later for updates.

Basic Information

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Recruitment Status

COMPLETED

Clinical Phase

NA

Total Enrollment

1789 participants

Study Classification

INTERVENTIONAL

Study Start Date

2015-01-31

Study Completion Date

2016-05-31

Brief Summary

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The purpose of this study is to measure whether a combined water, sanitation, and hygiene intervention leads to improved health of children who did not receive the intervention themselves and who live within a close vicinity of intervention recipients.

Detailed Description

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Almost 90% of diarrhea cases and 15% of under-5 diarrhea deaths worldwide could be prevented through improved water, sanitation, and hygiene. Sanitation interventions are also important for the prevention of soil-transmitted helminths, which infect 21 million children under five each year. Infection with soil-transmitted helminths and repeated episodes of diarrhea early in life can compromise physical and cognitive growth and development, resulting in poorer school performance later in life. Thus, water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) interventions are important not only for reducing child mortality, but also for preventing cycles of poverty and poor health.

It is possible that WASH interventions affect not only those who receive them but also those who are geographically proximate or connected socially to those receiving the intervention. Indeed, there is a large infectious disease modeling literature based on this premise. Investigators define intervention effects on non-recipients "spillovers", and they are often referred to as "herd effects" or "indirect effects". Most studies that have empirically measured spillovers of child health interventions with an experimental design have focused on vaccines and deworming, and no studies have measured spillovers from WASH interventions. The development and application of methodology for measuring spillovers of community interventions empirically would make a valuable contribution to fields including epidemiology, economics, political science, and social welfare, all of which are concerned with measuring the impact of programs and interventions which may spill over. The presence and magnitude of positive spillovers are important; if spillovers are present and are in the same direction as treatment effects but are not accounted for when estimating treatment effects, estimates will be biased towards the null. As a result, both the efficacy and cost effectiveness of the intervention will be underestimated.

In this study, investigators will measure spillovers of water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions in an existing, large, rigorously designed trial: the WASH Benefits trial (https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01590095). Funded by the Bill \& Melinda Gates Foundation, this trial aims to measure the individual and combined effects of water, sanitation, and hygiene interventions on child health and development. It is a cluster-randomized, controlled trial with six treatment arms and a double-sized control arm carried out in rural Bangladesh. This add-on study is funded by the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development (1R21HD076216-01A1). Investigators hypothesize that children who live in close proximity to compounds that receive a combined sanitation, handwashing, and water treatment intervention--compared to children who live in close proximity to control compounds (no intervention)--will have: 1) lower prevalence of diarrhea, 2) lower prevalence and intensity of infection of soil transmitted helminths, and 3) lower prevalence of respiratory illness.

Investigators will collect additional data from the existing combined intervention (sanitation+handwashing+water) and control arms of the WASH Benefits trial. For each WASH Benefits household, investigators will locate the nearest household with children 0-59 months of age that are not enrolled in WASH Benefits and collect data in that household. Our primary outcomes are soil transmitted helminth infection among children 0-59 months, caregiver-reported 7-day diarrhea, and respiratory illness among children 0-59 months (the same age as the WASH Benefits cohort). Our findings will document either the presence or absence of spillovers of the combined sanitation+handwashing+water intervention.

Conditions

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Helminthiasis Diarrhea Respiratory Infection

Keywords

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Chlorine water treatment Point-of-use water treatment Household water treatment with safe storage Handwashing with soap Hand hygiene Latrines Child potties Intestinal parasitic infection Soil-transmitted helminths Water Sanitation Handwashing Diarrhea Herd immunity Helminths

Study Design

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Allocation Method

RANDOMIZED

Intervention Model

PARALLEL

Primary Study Purpose

PREVENTION

Blinding Strategy

SINGLE

Investigators

Study Groups

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Combined water, sanitation, and hygiene

Water quality, Sanitation, Handwashing

Group Type ACTIVE_COMPARATOR

Combined water, sanitation, and hygiene

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Water: Free chlorine tablets (Aquatabs; NaDCC) and safe storage vessel to treat and store drinking water.

Sanitation: Free child potties, sani-scoop hoes to remove feces from household, and latrine upgrades to a dual pit latrine for all households in study compounds.

Handwashing: Handwashing stations including soapy water bottles and detergent soap.

Local promoters visit study compounds at least monthly to deliver behavior change messages that focus on (1) treating drinking water for children \< 36 months of age, (2) use of latrines for defecation and the removal of human and animal feces from the compound, and (3) handwashing with soap at critical times around food preparation, defecation, and contact with feces.

Non-intervention arm

None. Households will continue their usual practices.

Group Type NO_INTERVENTION

No interventions assigned to this group

Interventions

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Combined water, sanitation, and hygiene

Water: Free chlorine tablets (Aquatabs; NaDCC) and safe storage vessel to treat and store drinking water.

Sanitation: Free child potties, sani-scoop hoes to remove feces from household, and latrine upgrades to a dual pit latrine for all households in study compounds.

Handwashing: Handwashing stations including soapy water bottles and detergent soap.

Local promoters visit study compounds at least monthly to deliver behavior change messages that focus on (1) treating drinking water for children \< 36 months of age, (2) use of latrines for defecation and the removal of human and animal feces from the compound, and (3) handwashing with soap at critical times around food preparation, defecation, and contact with feces.

Intervention Type BEHAVIORAL

Eligibility Criteria

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Inclusion Criteria

* Children not enrolled in WASH Benefits who live in a compound within 120 steps (2 minutes walking time) of a compound enrolled in WASH Benefits (combined WSH or control arms) and are 0-60 months 24 months after intervention

Exclusion Criteria

* Children enrolled in WASH Benefits
* Children who live in compounds (baris) that share a courtyard with a compound enrolled in the WASH Benefits study
* Children who live in compounds (baris) that share a latrine or handwashing station with a compound enrolled in the WASH Benefits study
Maximum Eligible Age

60 Months

Eligible Sex

ALL

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Sponsors

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International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

Stanford University

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

OTHER

Sponsor Role collaborator

Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)

NIH

Sponsor Role collaborator

University of California, Berkeley

OTHER

Sponsor Role lead

Responsible Party

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Responsibility Role SPONSOR

Principal Investigators

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John M Colford, Jr., MD PhD

Role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR

University of California, Berkeley

Locations

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International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh

Dhaka, , Bangladesh

Site Status

Countries

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Bangladesh

References

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Arnold BF, Null C, Luby SP, Unicomb L, Stewart CP, Dewey KG, Ahmed T, Ashraf S, Christensen G, Clasen T, Dentz HN, Fernald LC, Haque R, Hubbard AE, Kariger P, Leontsini E, Lin A, Njenga SM, Pickering AJ, Ram PK, Tofail F, Winch PJ, Colford JM Jr. Cluster-randomised controlled trials of individual and combined water, sanitation, hygiene and nutritional interventions in rural Bangladesh and Kenya: the WASH Benefits study design and rationale. BMJ Open. 2013 Aug 30;3(8):e003476. doi: 10.1136/bmjopen-2013-003476.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 23996605 (View on PubMed)

Lin A, Arnold BF, Afreen S, Goto R, Huda TMN, Haque R, Raqib R, Unicomb L, Ahmed T, Colford JM, Luby SP. Household environmental conditions are associated with enteropathy and impaired growth in rural Bangladesh. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2013 Jul;89(1):130-137. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.12-0629. Epub 2013 Apr 29.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 23629931 (View on PubMed)

Sultana R, Mondal UK, Rimi NA, Unicomb L, Winch PJ, Nahar N, Luby SP. An improved tool for household faeces management in rural Bangladeshi communities. Trop Med Int Health. 2013 Jul;18(7):854-60. doi: 10.1111/tmi.12103. Epub 2013 Apr 5.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 23557125 (View on PubMed)

Hulland KR, Leontsini E, Dreibelbis R, Unicomb L, Afroz A, Dutta NC, Nizame FA, Luby SP, Ram PK, Winch PJ. Designing a handwashing station for infrastructure-restricted communities in Bangladesh using the integrated behavioural model for water, sanitation and hygiene interventions (IBM-WASH). BMC Public Health. 2013 Sep 23;13:877. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-877.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 24060247 (View on PubMed)

Dreibelbis R, Winch PJ, Leontsini E, Hulland KR, Ram PK, Unicomb L, Luby SP. The Integrated Behavioural Model for Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene: a systematic review of behavioural models and a framework for designing and evaluating behaviour change interventions in infrastructure-restricted settings. BMC Public Health. 2013 Oct 26;13:1015. doi: 10.1186/1471-2458-13-1015.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 24160869 (View on PubMed)

Vujcic J, Ram PK, Hussain F, Unicomb L, Gope PS, Abedin J, Mahmud ZH, Islam MS, Luby SP. Toys and toilets: cross-sectional study using children's toys to evaluate environmental faecal contamination in rural Bangladeshi households with different sanitation facilities and practices. Trop Med Int Health. 2014 May;19(5):528-36. doi: 10.1111/tmi.12292. Epub 2014 Mar 19.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 24645919 (View on PubMed)

Ercumen A, Naser AM, Unicomb L, Arnold BF, Colford JM Jr, Luby SP. Effects of source- versus household contamination of tubewell water on child diarrhea in rural Bangladesh: a randomized controlled trial. PLoS One. 2015 Mar 27;10(3):e0121907. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0121907. eCollection 2015.

Reference Type BACKGROUND
PMID: 25816342 (View on PubMed)

Related Links

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https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT01590095

WASH Benefits Bangladesh ClinicalTrials.gov Registration

http://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/3/8/e003476.full

Description of the design and rationale for WASH Benefits (open access article)

Other Identifiers

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1R21HD076216-01A1

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: secondary_id

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1R21HD076216-01A1

Identifier Type: NIH

Identifier Source: org_study_id

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