VI.
Future Directions
The findings from the WSP IE baseline and community surveys conducted in Dhar and Khargone districts of Madhya Pradesh, India and presented in this report provide a snapshot of the behaviors, health, and welfare of a particularly vulnerable population. The rural families with young children who participated in this survey were poorer and worse off in terms of education and key health outcomes (e.g., diarrheal prevalence, acute respiratory infections) than families living in MP at large and nationally. The surveyed population had significantly lower access to improved sanitation than families from the state and nation (87% reported sharing a toilet vs. 13% of MP at large and 17% of India, respectively). Results indicate a population very much in need of effective sanitation and health improvements. The majority of households (80%) openly defecated and many lacked access to improved sanitation (i.e., access ranged from 35% of households in the highest income quartile to only 5% of those in the lowest). More than half (54%) of households had to walk more than 10 minutes to their toilet/open defection site. Almost all households’ (97%) drinking-water sources were
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contaminated with E. coli and similar levels of contamination were found in community sources (94%). About 15% of children under five years old had symptoms of diarrhea within two weeks of the baseline interview and about 16% suffered from some type of parisitosis. Twelve percent had symptoms of acute lower respiratory infections. Although the baseline data collected are limited in establishing causality some emerging trends in the data suggest that gains in improved sanitation, likely to be brought about by TSC, could have positive impacts on the health and welfare of rural families, especially young children. The collection and analysis of postintervention data will permit us to both more closely examine the links between poor sanitation, poor health, and longer-term child development and to document the extent to which the GoI’s TSC improves these vital aspects of child health. Postintervention data collection in MP is scheduled to be completed in February 2011. A full impact evaluation report of the Global Scaling Up Rural Sanitation program will be published by the end of 2011.
Global Scaling Up Rural Sanitation
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