WASH-attributable burden of disease estimates based on the levels of service established under the SDG framework show that progress towards the internationally agreed goal of safely managed WASH services for all would yield major public-health returns.

Interventions promoting handwashing with soap can reduce acute respiratory infection in low-income and middle-income countries, and could help to prevent the large burden of respiratory disease.

Food hygiene is an underexplored, but potentially critical, behavior to mitigate fecal pathogen exposure for young children. This study revealed several knowledge and opportunity barriers that could be integrated into interventions to enhance food hygiene.

Our results support higher service levels called for under SDG 6. Notably, no studies evaluated interventions that delivered access to safely managed WASH services, the level of service to which universal coverage by 2030 is committed under the SDG.

The goal of this study was to quantify Escherichia coli KO11 bacteria, MS2 male-specific (F+) coliphage viruses, and turbidity reductions in seeded natural test water of defined quality when subjected to chitosan coagulation pre-treatment under different coagulation-flocculation stirring conditions, followed by sedimentation and cloth filtration.

Dr. Freeman is part of the Lancet Commission on WASH which aims to reimagine and reconstitute WASH not only as a central pillar of public health, but also as a pathway to gender equality and social and environmental justice.

A new paper from the group explores differences between men and women implementers of rural WASH programs in implementation approaches, challenges, and sources of support for implementation, and success in achieving program quality outcomes.

This paper from Sabrina Haque (PhD Candidate) and Matt describes the value of implementation science for the WASH sector and provides recommendations for its application.

Findings from this recent publication help identify where water provision is most relevant to managing COVID-19 spread and outcomes.

Kayoko Shioda (Post-Doctoral Fellow) and co-authors apply modeling approaches to help quantify the magnitude of SARS-CoV-2 infection underestimation and adjust estimates for waning antibodies.

Matt and Bethany discuss handwashing with soap is one of the most cost-effective public health interventions. Yet water inequity magnifies health disparity, making a simple behavior unattainable for the world’s poorest unless urgent action is taken.

As part of the SWASH+ project, this paper takes a mixed-methods approach to assess sanitation delivery in schools in Kenya over 3–4 years and investigated prevailing drivers and barriers that may influence the scalability of private sector sanitation delivery.

Directives to self-quarantine and social distance are essential to slow the spread of COVID-19, but how can people follow these directives if they do not have a household toilet? Matt and Bethany discuss.

Our study shows that factors other than WASH access, such as intra-household transmission, animal feces exposure, and environmental contamination may be important risk factors for enteric infections. These results highlight the challenges of addressing enteric infections using many of the existing WASH intervention approaches

Using color theory principles, we are developed and tested a novel metric that generates quantitative measures of facial and hand cleanliness, proxy indicators of personal hygiene practices - known as the “Quantitative Personal Hygiene Assessment Tool (qPHAT)”

This longitudinal evaluation in 11 Sub-Saharan Africa and Asian Countries revealed a successful model of rural sanitation service delivery.

This study outlines our approach to developing a theory- and evidence-based intervention that integrated a set of WASH and nutrition behaviors to target growth shortfalls among young children in western Kenya.

This paper reports on an expert meeting convened by the WHO and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to present five key consensus messages as a basis for wider discussion and debate in the WASH and nutrition sectors.

The design of a parallel cluster-randomized trial assessing the impact of a demand-side sanitation and hygiene intervention on sustained behavior change and mental well-being in rural and peri-urban Amhara, Ethiopia.

Despite recent declines in attributable mortality, inadequate WASH remains an important determinant of global disease burden, especially among young children.