Child Undernutrition following the Introduction of a Large-Scale Toilet Construction Campaign in India.

ABSTRACT:

Background

Lack of toilets and the widespread practice of open defecation may contribute to India's large burden of child undernutrition.

Objectives

We examine whether a large national sanitation campaign launched in 2014, the Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM), precedes a reduction in stunting and wasting among under 5-y-old (u5) children in India.

Methods

In this observational study, we used district-level data from before (2013-2014) and after (2015-2016) SBM from 3 national surveys to derive, as our outcomes, the percentage of u5 children per district who are stunted and wasted. We defined our exposures as 1) binary indicator of SBM and 2) percentage of households with toilets per district. Our analytic sample comprised nearly all 640 Indian districts (with ∼1200 rural/u

SUBMITTER: Singh P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8436001 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature