Reducing sexual violence by increasing the supply of toilets in Khayelitsha, South Africa: a mathematical model.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Sexual violence is a major public health issue, affecting 35% of women worldwide. Major risk factors for sexual assault include inadequate indoor sanitation and the need to travel to outdoor toilet facilities. We estimated how increasing the number of toilets in an urban township (Khayelitsha, South Africa) might reduce both economic costs and the incidence and social burden of sexual assault.

Methods

We developed a mathematical model that links risk of sexual assault to the number of sanitation facilities and the time a woman must spend walking to a toilet. We defined a composite societal cost function, comprising both the burden of sexual assault and the costs of installing and maintaining public chemical toilets. By expressing total social costs as a function o

SUBMITTER: Gonsalves GS 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4414450 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature