Hygiene behaviour news 4

Issue no. 4, January, 1999

Editorial
Dear Network member,

Welcome to the fourth issue of the newsletter. This issue is made up of your replies to the questionnaire sent out in January 1997, regarding your field of interest and what you did and didn't like about the Network. I am also including in this newsletter any other contributions you have sent to us. There were delays with producing this issue so apologies for the fact that some information will be well out of date. Also included in this issue is a list of members' publications.

At present there are 169 network members. In order to facilitate networking, in the next newsletter we will include names, addresses and email addresses of all members. If you don't want your name or address included, please let us know. We expect to produce the next newsletter in September 1999.

We received 17 replies to the questionnaire. There was some interest in a French language version of the newsletter. Many respondents were interested in an email based hygiene behaviour network. However, it is not clear how available the necessary facilities are to Network members, particularly those working in Africa. Plans are presently underway for developing an email based discussion group and you will be kept informed of progress.

All respondents favoured the idea of a meeting or workshop in order to share ideas and several people offered to help organise it. One of the strengths of the Network was being able to keep in touch with developments in hygiene behaviour. Another positive aspect of the Network was the exchange of ideas, especially from other parts of the world. There were few criticisms of the Network, only that regular meetings should be possible and that the newsletters are infrequent.

Please send any contributions, comments and suggestions you have about this newsletter. In particular, we would like to hear about:

• recently completed research projects and findings; and
  
• news of any publications which you think may be of interest to other Network members.
  

Thank you.

Eva Kaltenthaler, Editor
ScHARR,
University of Sheffield,
Regent Court,
30 Regent Street,
Sheffield,
S1 4DA,
UK.

Email: e.kaltenthaler@sheffield.ac.uk

Network Member Contributions

Astier Almedom, London, UK writes that the HEP is now available in French and Spanish (from IT Publications, London, fax +44 171 436 2013). She has had articles published recently in DFID's Water and in the IRC Source Bulletin.

S. Vijayalakshmi Ammal, Kerala, India, is an independent consultant interested in mass communication, health education and training. Recent work includes a report of the Kerala Hygiene Evaluation Study and an Evaluation report of the Family Welfare Project.

Patricia Hotchkiss Bakir, Amman, Jordan, is a freelance consultant in water and sanitation and is particularly interested in community participation, behavioural change, public advocacy at all levels and overall management and planning.

Mihir R. Bhatt, Ahmedabad, India is the Director of the Foundation for Public Interest and sent a presentation on a report card for poor self employed women on public services in Ahmedabad. This report card is used to find out which facilities are most commonly used by low income groups, the level of satisfaction among these groups with these facilities and to assess specific problems.

Vicky Blagbrough, London UK, is the Hygiene Education Adviser for Water Aid. She reports on recent work in southern India studying the use of neem leaves as an alternative to soap for hand-washing. She wonders if other Network members have access to literature or research on neem's possible bactericidal qualities.

E.J. Chaggu, Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania is works at the University College of Lands and Architectural Studies in environmental engineering. Her research deals with rainwater harvesting in Tanzania. Phase I of her study dealt with socio-economic and socio-cultural aspects of rainwater catchment. Phase II dealt with the implementation of proposed technologies. This was necessary due to acute water shortages affecting health. Expectant mothers bring their own water to clinics for delivery. It was thought that the provision of rainwater tanks would improve the situation. The monitoring report shows a great appreciation for the provision of rainwater tanks. Their implementation has reduced the burden on expectant mothers. Also those built at schools has been much appreciated by pupils. There has also been an improvement in hygiene patterns but more tanks are needed.

Jan-Olof Drangert, Linkoping, Sweden works for Tema Water and is interested in perceptions, actual behaviours and local activities relating to water. His work has involved environmental sanitation in poor peri-urban areas in Africa. His recent report is entitled "Safe Water Environments." Proceedings from a conference in Eldoret, Kenya, August 1995.

S.M. Kaushik, Ajmer, India, is the executive secretary of a voluntary organisation working for the development of rural people, especially women and children from deprived communities.

Jacqueline Gravatito Lopez, Cali, Columbia, works for Cinara, a Research and Development Institute working towards improvement in drinking water, basic sanitation and water resource conservation. She describes a course / workshop offered by Cinara which promoted the integration of hygiene in water supply and sanitation projects. This course / workshop was targeted at professionals and technicians working on planning design, implementation and evaluation of water supply and sanitation projects and was held in September 1997.

Assunta Gueria, Vicenza, Italy, is involved in urban management and has undertaken a PhD on hygiene behaviour related to waste water in Ile-Ife, Nigeria. Since then Assunta has been involved in urban management in developing countries and the use of hygiene behaviour studies in the successful implementation of sanitation devices.

Abdullahel Hadi, Dhaka, Bangladesh, works for the NGO, BRAC and is primarily interested in change in hygiene behaviour as a result of the intervention of private voluntary development organisations. Abdullahel sent a copy of BRAC's newsletter Findings in the newsletter indicate that households involved with the credit based development programme of BRAC are 3.66 times more likely to use sanitary latrines than those who were not involved in the BRAC programme. The newsletter concludes that improvements in sanitation coverage could be made if supervised credit for the provision of latrines were provided. Also social mobilisation with an emphasis on self-reliance may improve results.

Hugh Hawes, UK sent notes on a special lecture on health promotion in schools. He describes a book, entitled Children for Health published in association with UNICEF, which deals with various aspects of children's health. He maintains that school health is very important with health to include mental, emotional and environmental health. Schools have a responsibility to spread health ideas to the community. Planners at both national and local level need to look at school health promotion as one integrated policy and not a series of separate ones.

Sharon Huttly, London, UK is mainly interested in child health. She has recently been involved in a study in Peru, investigating faeces disposal practices, their determinants and feasibility for change. Qualitative research methods were used to investigate these issues in a shanty town of Lima in order to design interventions. The use of potties and the clearance of stools in situations where "accidents" occur emerged as priority areas of behaviour. A large-scale trial was then undertaken in eight communities in the shanty town (four intervention and 4 control). Post intervention data was to be collected in late 1997.

Surendra K. Jain, Jaipur, India works as a freelance consultant involved in science and technology inputs, identification of appropriate technologies, integrated development and human resources development.

Coral Jepson, London UK, works for the Child Health Programme in AHRTAG and is interested in primary health care and all aspects of child health. AHRTAG collects materials on hygiene behaviour in its London based resource centre and maintains on-line bibliographic database of relevant materials. Hygiene behaviour and how it affects child health is discussed in their international newsletter: Child Health Dialogue.

Eva Kaltenthaler, Sheffield UK, is interested in food hygiene behaviour in the UK as well as school hygiene behaviour. Recent publications are listed below.

Abdul Qayeum Karim, Afghanistan works as the synopses co-ordinator and script writer to the BBC Afghan Education Drama Project (AED). The BBC AED produces a soap opera that is designed to relay basic health and educational messages in both Dari (Persian) and Pashto via Radio Pakistan and the BBC World Service. Many of these messages relate to hygiene and sanitation behaviour patterns. Issues covered so far include: washing hands after defecating, washing hands before eating, hygiene relating to safe birth and motherhood, clean water, clean food, keeping children clean and keeping the environment and well / spring water clean. The soap opera is reinforced with the production of cartoon journals that cover these messages in a pictorial format that is very popular in Afghanistan. As the writers' representative, Abdul frequently accompanies the evaluation teams on trips inside Afghanistan.

Koronel M.P. Kema, Leeds, UK is interested in water use patterns for low income communities and the use of latrines as well as latrine use and personal hygiene. The title of his research is "Proposed Hygiene Education Programme for Kumara Village in Easter Zaire."

C.G. Nicholas Mascie-Taylor, Cambridge, UK, is interested in disease control, nutrition, growth and disease interactions. He has recently completed work on intestinal parasite control in Bangladesh and this work forms a WHO report.

Reema Nanavaty, Ahmedabad, India works for the Self Employed Women’s Association. and is interested in ways of integrating water supplies with women’s concerns.

Thomas Oyok, Gulu, Uganda is interested in hospital environmental hygiene.

Arvind K. Patel, Ahmedabad, India works for the Disaster Mitigation Institute and is interested in water security programs in arid and desert areas of the state and has recently published are report entitled "Community Based Handpump Maintenance Scheme".

John Pinfold, Brighton, UK sent a report of his work as a community development adviser to the Punjab Water Supply and Sanitation Project within the Public Health Engineering Department. There he established a community development unit in order that rural water and sanitation systems are in future managed by communities. His publication are included in this newsletter.

Ramesh Babu Shrestha, Kathmandu, Nepal works for the Centre for Education and Communication on Environment and Development. The emphasis of their programmes is mainly on raising peoples' awareness through education and research. Issues covered include keeping houses clean, water resources, management of sewage disposal and nutrition. They are involved in implementing income generating activities such as kitchen gardens. They also carry out small research projects on bacterial and chemical pollution and make the results available to the public.

Shirin Sultan, Afghanistan works for the AED Project as an Audience Evaluation Co-ordinator. Her team carries out extensive survey work within Afghanistan. Their evaluation tests peoples knowledge both before and after broadcasting the drama called "New Home, New Life". They are currently expanding their methodology to include focus group discussions and qualitative interviewing styles. The cartoon journals mentioned by Abdul Qayeum Karim are very popular and if you are interested in receiving copies please let them know.

Andrew Trevett, Cranfield University, UK is undertaking a PhD attached to an NGO in EL Salvador entitled "Development of Strategies for Improving Public Health with Special Reference to Rural Communities in El Salvador."

J.J. van der Vliet, Reading, UK, is interested in water supply and sanitation education in developing countries and emergency situations.

Susan Watts, Cairo, Egypt, is currently involved in planning a hygiene education programme for UNICEF/Egypt. She has worked on hygiene behaviour and education issues for Save the Children in Egypt as a member of a team providing emergency water and sanitation to flood victims in Upper Egypt.

Recent Publications by Network Members
I am sure there are many more publications out there from network members, but these are the ones that have been sent to us. Please send in any references you would like to include for the next newsletter issue.

• Lanata CF, Huttly SRA, Yeager BAC (1998) Diarrhoea-whose faeces matter? Reflections from studies in a Peruvian shanty town. Paediatric Infectious Diseases Journal 17: 7-9.
  

• Huttly SRA, Lanat CF, Yager BAC, Fukumoto M, Gonzales H, del Aguila R, Kendall C. (1998) Faeces, flies and vector: findings from a Peruvian shanty town. Pan American Journal of Public Health 4(2): 75-79.
  

• Chavasse DC, Shier RP, Murphy OA, Huttly SRA, Cousens SN, AKhtar T. (1999) The impact of fly control on childhood diarrhoea in Pakistan. Lancet 353: 22-25.
  

• Huttly SRA. (1994) Raising some issues on sample size and sampling procedures in observational studies of hygiene behaviour. In: Studying Hygiene Behaviour: Methods, Issues and Experiences. Eds. Cairncross A & Kochar V. Sage Publications.
  

• Huttly SRA, Lanata CF, Conzales H, Aguilar I, Fukumoto M, Verastegui H and Black RE (1994) Structured observations of handwashing and defecation practices in a shanty town of Lima, Peru. Journal of Diarrhoeal Diseases Research 12(1): 14-18.
  

• Huttly SRA. (1994) Water , sanitation and health in developing countries. In: Water and Public Health. eds: Golding AMB, Noah N and Stanwell-Smith R. Smith -Gordon: Nishimura, pp 251-258.
  

• Huttly SRA, Morris SS & Pisani E.(1997) Prevention of diarrhoea in young children in developing countries. Bulletin WHO: 75(2): 163-174.
  

• Monte CMG, Ashworth A, Nations MK, Lima AA, Barreto A & Huttly SRA. (1997) Designing educational messages to improve weaning food hygiene practices of families living in poverty. Social Science and Medicine 44(10): 1453-1464.
  

• Huttly SRA. Water, sanitation, personal and domestic hygiene. In: Global Burden of Disease, in press.
  

• Kaltenthaler EC, Elsworth AM, Schweiger MS, Mara DD, Braunholtz DA. (1995) Faecal contamination on children's hands and environmental surfaces in primary schools in Leeds. Epidemiology and Infection 115: 527-534.
  

• Kaltenthaler EC & Pinfold JV. (1995) Microbiological methods for assessing handwashing practice in hygiene behaviour studies. Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 98: 101-106.
  

• Kaltenthaler EC, Drasar BS, Potter CW. (1996) The use of microbiology in the study of hygiene behaviour. Microbios 88: 35-43.
  

• Kaltenthaler EC & Drasar BS. (1996) Understanding of hygiene behaviour and diarrhoea in two villages in Botswana. Journal of Diarrhoeal Diseases Research 14(2): 75-80.
  

• Kaltenthaler EC & Drasar BS. (1996) The study of hygiene behaviour in Botswana: a combination of qualitative and quantitative methods. Tropical Medicine and International Health 1(5): 690-698.
  

• Pinfold JV & Horan NJ. (1996) Measuring the effect of a hygiene behaviour intervention by indicators of behaviour and diarrhoeal disease. Transactions of the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene 90:; 366-371.
  

Updated 03/03/03

Maintained by f.o.odhiambo@lboro.ac.uk and j.fisher1@lboro.ac.uk