Sustainability ofawater, sanitation andhygiene education project inrural Bangladesh: a5-year follow-up

Anintegrated water supply, sanitation andhygiene (WSH)education intervention project wasrunbythe International Centre for Diarrhoeal Disease Research, Bangladesh, overtheperiod 1983-87. Intheintervention areatheproject provided handpumps, pit latrines, andhygiene education toabout 800households. The control population didnotreceive anyinterventions, buthadaccess totheusual government andprivate WSHfacilities. After 1987noexternal support wasprovided tomaintain these provisions. Across-sectional follow-up survey, which wascarried outin1992, involved about 500randomly selected households fromthe intervention andcontrol areas. In1992about 82%ofthepumpswerestill ingoodfunctional condition andofthese, 94%hadbeen functioning well in1987. Fewerlatrines werefunctional in1992(64%) thanattheendof1987(93%). Inthe former intervention areaabout 84%oftheadults wereusing sanitary latrines in1992compared with only 7% inthecontrol area. Knowledge related todisease transmission, however, waspoorandsimilar inbothareas. People claimed that theyusedtheWSHfacilities toimprove thequality oftheir lives. Theprevalence of diarrhoeal diseases inthe1992survey amongthecontrol population wasabouttwice that amongthose in theintervention area.