Poor Sanitation and Its Impact on Public Health

Currently, 2.6 billion people lack access to improved sanitation, with Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa accounting for two-thirds of the population. 1.2 billion people, more than half of whom live in India, lack even basic sanitation and must defecate in the open. There are significant regional disparities in sanitation coverage. Read this interesting paper on Sanitation and Health to know more:

Mara, D., Lane, J., Scott, B., & Trouba, D. (2010). Sanitation and health. PLoS medicine, 7(11), e1000363. //doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1000363  

@ashruti-bhatt Agreed. Apart from affecting adult health, hygiene is also a major issue related to mortality among children in India (1). However, in order to achieve universal sanitation, the Government of India launched "Swachh Bharat Mission" (SBM) in 2014. By 2019, all villages, gram panchayats, districts, states and UTs declared themselves open defecation free. To know more about the SBM click on the following links:

//swachhbharatmission.gov.in/sbmcms/index.htm

//swachhbharatmission.gov.in/SBMCMS/about-us.htm

1.

//pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30243583/

Not much importance has been given to maternal sanitation behavior during pregnancy while assessing the adverse pregnancy outcome. The below mentioned research paper talks about the importance of sanitation during pregnancy. One in every five women with poor sanitation has gone through adverse pregnancy outcomes according to the data from National Family Health Survey-IV (2015-16), India. States like Odisha, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh, and Rajasthan had poor sanitation coverage and also reported higher number of adverse pregnancy outcomes.

//www.researchgate.net/profile/Ratna-Patel/publication/340664258_Are_we_ignoring_the_Importance_of_Sanitation_while_Mourning_the_Adverse_Pregnancy_Outcomes/links/5e9802e792851c2f52a63fc3/Are-we-ignoring-the-Importance-of-Sanitation-while-Mourning-the-Adverse-Pregnancy-Outcomes.pdf

I think policy cohesion and strong promotional communication are required to attain a remarkable change in sanitation. I visited one of the densely populated tribal areas in Rajasthan. And I think they have done a good job of achieving this and working towards good health and well being. Since, there are many intervention going on by many UN organisation to spread awareness about it. I think: The government must begin not only to structure but also implement an overarching policy across India, especially the rural, slum area, that would facilitate entry and reduce start-up time for other non-govt org or private org looking at this market, or else privatisation would make it unaffordable for the needy and vulnerable population. Alongside this, guidelines and regulation are required to keep a check on the provision of resources to attain healthy sanitation practices.

Lack of Sanitation has a huge impact on health and is linked to many health issues. Factors like open urination, defecation, indiscriminate dumping of waste, etc. Problems related to diarrhea is one of the major cause of morbidity and mortality among children below 5 years of age; for open defecation, people use to walk in forest or planted areas late at night, which leads to an increase in snake bites which takes the lives of 45,000 Indians annually. 

Articles to read: //www.open.edu/openlearncreate/mod/oucontent/view.php?id=80399&printable=1

//healthissuesindia.com/poor-sanitation/

In 2015, 1/6th of all premature deaths worldwide—or more than 9 million people—were directly or indirectly related to water and sanitation issues. These deaths outweighed those brought on by war, hunger, and all other related illnesses combined. More than 90% of deaths occurred in the poor and developing countries of Asia and Africa. Additionally, pollution-related illnesses cost the world economy 6.2% of its total output. It would be necessary to manage faecal waste urgently and put an end to the harmful practice of open defecation, which puts the public's health at serious risk by exposing them to fecal-pathogen-polluted water. Through the creation of policies and the execution of sanitation programmes, the health sector may significantly improve sanitation in underdeveloped nations.

1.Mukherjee et al. (2019). Impact of sanitation and socio-economy on groundwater fecal pollution and human health towards achieving sustainable development goals across India from ground-observations and satellite-derived nightlight. Scientific reports, 9(1), 15193

//pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/31645651/

2. Mara, D., Lane, J., Scott, B., & Trouba, D. (2010). Sanitation and health. PLoS medicine, 7(11), e1000363.

//www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2981586/

Apart from poor nutrition, the environmental health hazards are also found to be responsible for childhood stunting. Stunting can have long-term, negative effects on one's health, including potentially fatal complications during childbirth, poorer cognitive growth and performance, reduced school attendance, and lower adult earning potential.

It is found that lack of sanitation, lack of waste disposal at the community level, dirt floors in domestic settings, mycotoxins in food, and the burning of solid fuels indoors have an association with childhood stunting. Evidence suggests that access to good sanitation guards against stunting in most situations.

Health promotion activities may be more effective if they consider environmental factors alongside nutritional interventions to reduce stunting rates among population.

To know more, read this paper: //www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6748290/  

Over 1.7 billion people still do not have basic sanitation services, such as  toilets and 494 million still defecate in the open like street gutters, behind bushes or into open bodies of water.Poor sanitation reduces human well-being, social and economic development such as anxiety and lost opportunities for education and work.

//www.who.int/newsroom/factsheets/detail/sanitation#:~:text=Poor%20sanitation%20is%20linked%20to,the%20spread%20of%20antimicrobial%20resistance.

An estimated 1.7 billion people (or about 21% of the world's population) lack the most basic sanitation.  Availability of facilities for the safe disposal of human waste (fecal matter and urine), as well as the ability to maintain hygienic conditions through services such as garbage collection, define basic sanitation.

Reference- //www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/sanitation/index.html  

Poor sanitation greatly affects children. Facilities, services and individual behaviours together provide an environment which is hygienic, that is necessary for children to fight against diseases and be healthy in their growing years. Poor sanitation risks children into developing childhood diseases and malnutrition which can impact the overall development, learning and, in long term, the economic opportunities. Poor sanitation could be a barrier for an individual's prosperity and their development.  

The right to education, of children, especially girls, is threatened when they do not have access to private and good sanitation facilities in their learning environment.

Source: //www.unicef.org/wash/sanitation