Menstrual hygiene management (MHM) practices vary worldwide and depend on the individual’s socioeconomic status, personal preferences, local traditions and beliefs, and access to water and sanitation resources. MHM practices can be particularly unhygienic and inconvenient for girls and women in poorer settings. Little is known about whether unhygienic MHM practices increase a woman’s exposure to urogenital infections, such as bacterial vaginosis (BV) and urinary tract infection (UTI). This study aimed to determine the association of MHM practices with urogenital infections, controlling for environmental drivers. A hospital-based case-control study was conducted on 486 women at Odisha, India. Cases and controls were recruited using a syndromic approach. Vaginal swabs were collected from all the participants and tested for BV status using Amsel’s criteria. Urine samples were cultured to assess UTI status. Socioeconomic status, clinical symptoms and reproductive history, and MHM and water and sanitation practices were obtained by standardised questionnaire. A total of 486 women were recruited to the study, 228 symptomatic cases and 258 asymptomatic controls. Women who used reusable absorbent pads were more likely to have symptoms of urogenital infection (AdjOR=2.3, 95%CI1.5-3.4) or to be diagnosed with at least one urogenital infection (BV or UTI) (AdjOR=2.8, 95%CI1.7-4.5), than women using disposable pads. Increased wealth and space for personal hygiene in the household were protective for BV (AdjOR=0.5, 95%CI0.3-0.9 and AdjOR=0.6, 95%CI0.3-0.9 respectively). Lower education of the participants was the only factor associated with UTI after adjusting for all the confounders (AdjOR=3.1, 95%CI1.2-7.9). Interventions that ensure women have access to private facilities with water for MHM and that educate women about safer, low-cost MHM materials could reduce urogenital disease among women. Further studies of the effects of specific practices for managing hygienically reusable pads and studies to explore other pathogenic reproductive tract infections are needed.

More than 761 million people rely on shared sanitation facilities. These have historically been excluded from international sanitation targets, regardless of the service level, due to concerns about acceptability, hygiene and access. In connection with a proposed change in such policy, we undertook this review to identify and summarize existing evidence that compares health outcomes associated with shared sanitation versus individual household latrines. Shared sanitation included any type of facilities intended for the containment of human faeces and used by more than one household, but excluded public facilities. Health outcomes included diarrhoea, helminth infections, enteric fevers, other faecal-oral diseases, trachoma and adverse maternal or birth outcomes. Studies were included regardless of design, location, language or publication status. Studies were assessed for methodological quality using the STROBE guidelines. Twenty-two studies conducted in 21 countries met the inclusion criteria. Studies show a pattern of increased risk of adverse health outcomes associated with shared sanitation compared to individual household latrines. A meta-analysis of 12 studies reporting on diarrhoea found increased odds of disease associated with reliance on shared sanitation (odds ratio (OR) 1.44, 95% CI: 1.18–1.76). Evidence to date does not support a change of existing policy of excluding shared sanitation from the definition of improved sanitation used in international monitoring and targets. However, such evidence is limited, does not adequately address likely confounding, and does not identify potentially important distinctions among types of shared facilities. As reliance on shared sanitation is increasing, further research is necessary to determine the circumstances, if any, under which shared sanitation can offer a safe, appropriate and acceptable alternative to individual household latrines.

The importance of maternal sanitation behaviour during pregnancy for birth outcomes remains unclear. Poor sanitation practices can promote infection and induce stress during pregnancy and may contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes (APOs). We aimed to assess whether poor sanitation practices were associated with increased risk of APOs such as preterm birth and low birth weight in a population-based study in rural India. A prospective cohort of pregnant women (n = 670) in their first trimester of pregnancy was enrolled and followed until birth. Socio-demographic, clinical, and anthropometric factors, along with access to toilets and sanitation practices, were recorded at enrolment (12th week of gestation). A trained community health volunteer conducted home visits to ensure retention in the study and learn about study outcomes during the course of pregnancy. Unadjusted odds ratios (ORs) and adjusted odds ratios (AORs) and 95% confidence intervals for APOs were estimated by logistic regression models. Of the 667 women who were retained at the end of the study, 58.2% practiced open defecation and 25.7% experienced APOs, including 130 (19.4%) preterm births, 95 (14.2%) births with low birth weight, 11 (1.7%) spontaneous abortions, and six (0.9%) stillbirths. Unadjusted ORs for APOs (OR: 2.53; 95% CI: 1.72–3.71), preterm birth (OR: 2.36; 95% CI: 1.54–3.62), and low birth weight (OR: 2.00; 95% CI: 1.24–3.23) were found to be significantly associated with open defecation practices. After adjustment for potential confounders such as maternal socio-demographic and clinical factors, open defecation was still significantly associated with increased odds of APOs (AOR: 2.38; 95% CI: 1.49–3.80) and preterm birth (AOR: 2.22; 95% CI: 1.29–3.79) but not low birth weight (AOR: 1.61; 95% CI: 0.94–2.73). The association between APOs and open defecation was independent of poverty and caste. Even though we accounted for several key confounding factors in our estimates, the possibility of residual confounding should not be ruled out. We did not identify specific exposure pathways that led to the outcomes. This study provides the first evidence, to our knowledge, that poor sanitation is associated with a higher risk of APOs. Additional studies are required to elucidate the socio-behavioural and/or biological basis of this association so that appropriate targeted interventions might be designed to support improved birth outcomes in vulnerable populations. While it is intuitive to expect that caste and poverty are associated with poor sanitation practice driving APOs, and we cannot rule out additional confounders, our results demonstrate that the association of poor sanitation practices (open defecation) with these outcomes is independent of poverty. Our results support the need to assess the mechanisms, both biological and behavioural, by which limited access to improved sanitation leads to APOs. Pregnancy is usually a happy time for women and their families. But, for some women, pregnancy ends unhappily. Some women lose their baby during early pregnancy (spontaneous abortion or miscarriage) or during late pregnancy (stillbirth). Others have their baby earlier than expected (preterm birth) or have a baby with low birth weight, two outcomes that adversely affect the baby’s survival and long-term health. The burden of adverse pregnancy outcomes (low birth weight, preterm birth, stillbirth, and spontaneous abortion) is substantial across the world but is particularly high in resource-limited settings. More than 60% of all preterm births take place in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa, and in India alone nearly 13 million babies (47% of all births) had a low birth weight in 2010. Many risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes have been identified, including infection, diabetes, poor antenatal care, and other socio-economic factors, but a clear causal mechanism for adverse pregnancy outcomes has not been established. One potential risk factor for adverse pregnancy outcomes, particularly in resource-limited settings, is poor sanitation—the inadequate provision of facilities and services for the safe disposal of human urine and feces. The WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme for Water Supply and Sanitation estimates that, globally, 1.1 billion people defecate in the open, a practice that can expose individuals to contact with human feces containing infectious organisms and that can contaminate food and water. Poor sanitation might contribute to adverse pregnancy outcomes by promoting infection or by causing stress during pregnancy. Women might, for example, limit their intake of food and water to avoid having to use inadequate toilet facilities, thereby adversely affecting the health of their unborn child. Here, the researchers assess whether poor sanitation practices are associated with an increased risk of adverse pregnancy outcomes by undertaking a population-based prospective study in two rural areas of Odisha state, India. Odisha has a high infant death rate (57 deaths per 1,000 live births), only 18.2% of households have access to an improved latrine (a facility such as a flush toilet that hygienically prevents human contact with human excreta), and 75% of households practice open defecation. For their study, the researchers enrolled 670 women during the first trimester of their pregnancy. They recorded socio-demographic data (for example, age, level of education, and household assets), clinical data, weight and height, and toilet access and sanitation practices for each woman at enrollment and followed them through pregnancy until birth. Nearly two-thirds of the women practiced open defecation, and a quarter experienced an adverse pregnancy outcome, most commonly a preterm birth and/or having a baby with low birth weight. After adjustment for potential confounding factors (factors that might affect outcomes, such as socio-demographic characteristics), open defecation was significantly associated with adverse pregnancy outcomes (all four adverse outcomes considered together) and with preterm birth, but not with low birth weight (a significant association is one that is unlikely to have happened by chance). Specifically, the adjusted odds ratios (an indicator of the strength of association between an exposure and an outcome; an odds ratio of more than one indicates that an exposure increases the risk of an outcome) of adverse pregnancy outcomes and preterm birth among women practicing open defecation compared with women with access to a latrine were 2.38 and 2.22, respectively. Notably, these associations were independent of poverty, caste, and religion. These findings indicate that, among women in Odisha, defecation in the open (poor sanitation) during pregnancy is associated with a higher risk of any adverse pregnancy outcome and of preterm birth than the use of a latrine. Counterintuitively, these findings also suggest that the association between open defecation and adverse pregnancy outcomes is not explained by poverty. Although the researchers adjusted for numerous confounding factors in their analysis, the women who defecated in the open may have shared some other unknown characteristic (residual confounding) that was actually responsible for their increased risk of an adverse pregnancy outcome. Further studies are now needed to determine the socio-behavioral and/or biological basis of the association between poor sanitation and adverse pregnancy outcomes. Appropriate public health interventions can then be designed to reduce the burden of adverse pregnancy outcomes among women living in settings where there is limited access to adequate sanitation. This list of resources contains links that can be accessed when viewing the PDF on a device or via the online version of the article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001828.

Diarrheal disease is the second leading cause of disease in children less than 5 y of age. Poor water, sanitation, and hygiene conditions are the primary routes of exposure and infection. Sanitation and hygiene interventions are estimated to generate a 36% and 48% reduction in diarrheal risk in young children, respectively. Little is known about whether the number of households sharing a sanitation facility affects a child's risk of diarrhea. The objective of this study was to describe sanitation and hygiene access across the Global Enteric Multicenter Study (GEMS) sites in Africa and South Asia and to assess sanitation and hygiene exposures, including shared sanitation access, as risk factors for moderate-to-severe diarrhea (MSD) in children less than 5 y of age. The GEMS matched case-control study was conducted between December 1, 2007, and March 3, 2011, at seven sites in Basse, The Gambia; Nyanza Province, Kenya; Bamako, Mali; Manhiça, Mozambique; Mirzapur, Bangladesh; Kolkata, India; and Karachi, Pakistan. Data was collected for 8,592 case children aged <5 y old experiencing MSD and for 12,390 asymptomatic age, gender, and neighborhood-matched controls. An MSD case was defined as a child with a diarrheal illness 93%) had access to a sanitation facility, while 70% of households in rural Kenya had access to a facility. Practicing open defecation was a risk factor for MSD in children 93%) at six of the sites had access to a sanitation facility, whereas only 70% of households at the Kenyan site had access to a facility. Compared to having a private household sanitation facility, sharing a facility with three or more households significantly increased the risk of young children developing diarrhea (a significantly increased risk is unlikely to have occurred by chance) at the study sites in Kenya, Mali, Mozambique, and Pakistan. At the sites in Kenya, Mali, and Pakistan, sharing a facility with one or two households also increased MSD risk. Sharing a sanitation facility did not increase MSD risk at the sites in The Gambia, Bangladesh, or India. These findings show that sharing a sanitation facility with one or two other households is associated with an increased risk of MSD in young children. Because this was an observational study, these findings only show an association between the use of shared sanitation facilities and MSD risk; they cannot prove that using shared facilities causes diarrhea. It could be, for example, that households who decide to invest in a private sanitation facility also prioritize safe hygiene practices. The reduced risk of diarrhea in these households might then be the result of everyone washing their hands after using the toilet rather than the result of having a private latrine. Nevertheless, these findings suggest that interventions aimed at increasing access to private household sanitation facilities might reduce the global MSD burden. Moreover, they suggest that shared sanitation facilities should continue to be classified as “unimproved” for the purposes of monitoring global access to sanitation. This list of resources contains links that can be accessed when viewing the PDF on a device or via the online version of the article at http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1002010.

Lack of adequate sanitation results in fecal contamination of the environment and poses a risk of disease transmission via multiple exposure pathways. To better understand how eight different sources contribute to overall exposure to fecal contamination, we quantified exposure through multiple pathways for children under 5 years old in four high-density, low-income, urban neighborhoods in Accra, Ghana. We collected more than 500 hours of structured observation of behaviors of 156 children, 800 household surveys, and 1,855 environmental samples. Data were analyzed using Bayesian models, estimating the environmental and behavioral factors associated with exposure to fecal contamination. These estimates were applied in exposure models simulating sequences of behaviors and transfers of fecal indicators. This approach allows us to identify the contribution of any sources of fecal contamination in the environment to child exposure and use dynamic fecal microbe transfer networks to track fecal indicators from the environment to oral ingestion. The contributions of different sources to exposure were categorized into four types (high/low by dose and frequency), as a basis for ranking pathways by the potential to reduce exposure. Although we observed variation in estimated exposure (10⁸–10¹⁶ CFU/day for Escherichia coli) between different age groups and neighborhoods, the greatest contribution was consistently from food (contributing > 99.9% to total exposure). Hands played a pivotal role in fecal microbe transfer, linking environmental sources to oral ingestion. The fecal microbe transfer network constructed here provides a systematic approach to study the complex interaction between contaminated environment and human behavior on exposure to fecal contamination.