1. HYGIENE
IMPROVEMENT FOR DIARRHEAL DISEASE PREVENTION
Approximately 1.3
million children under the age of five die each year from diarrheal
diseases. Although mortality figures from diarrhea have declined
substantially over the past two decades, there is no evidence to show a
parallel reduction in diarrhea morbidity. To address and reduce
morbidity, EHP promotes hygiene improvement—an integrated approach
that combines feasible primary prevention interventions: access to
hardware (water, sanitation and household–level technologies); hygiene
promotion through hygiene behavior change; and an enabling environment
through policy improvement, public-private partnerships and
institutional strengthening. Activities related to hygiene improvement
for diarrheal disease prevention include:
- Operations
research to address key questions related to environmental
interventions for diarrheal disease prevention
- Development
of guidelines for sanitation policy improvements
- Development
of tools to help PVOs/NGOs, program managers and communities design
and implement hygiene improvement activities consistent with EHP’s
Hygiene Improvement Framework
- Implementation
of field activities related to hygiene improvement
- Implementation
of activities—assessments, pilot programs—to better understand
specific urban health issues, particularly child health, for effective
urban slum programming
Related EHP
Publications: http://www.ehproject.org/Pubs/Topic_Listing.htm.
Related EHP Briefs:
EHP
Brief 24. Improving Small Town Sanitation in Jamaica- A Success
Story
EHP Brief 23.
Monitoring
and Evaluation Plan for the West Africa Water Initiative
EHP Brief 22. Public-Private
Partnership for Handwashing with Soap Initiative in Nepal
EHP
Brief 21. Cairo
Healthy Neighborhood Program.
EHP Brief 18.
Participatory Monitoring of Hygiene Behavior Change in Hato Mayor,
Dominican Republic
EHP Brief 17. West
Bank Village Water and Sanitation Program: Findings from Environmental
Health Assessments
EHP Brief 16.
Improving Urban Environmental Health in the Democratic Republic of Congo
EHP Brief 12.
Local Government to Support Community Management of Environmental Health
in Benin
EHP Brief 11. A
Framework for Action: Child Diarrhea Prevention
EHP Brief 7.
Improving Small Towns' Sanitation in Latin America and the Caribbean
EHP Brief 6.
Improved Hygiene in Kinshasa Markets, Democratic Republic of Congo
EHP Brief 5.
Programming, Participation, and Partnerships under Duress: The West Bank
Village Water and Sanitation Program
EHP Brief 4.
Protecting the Health of Hurricane Mitch Victims in Nicaragua: The EHP
Rural Water Supply, Sanitation, and Environmental Health Reconstruction
Program
EHP Brief 1. Case
Studies on Decentralization of Water Supply and Sanitation in Latin
America
2. ENVIRONMENTAL
CHANGE AND HEALTH OUTCOMES FOR PREVENTION AND CONTROL OF MALARIA AND
VECTOR-BORNE DISEASES
EHP uses cross-sectoral
surveillance and integrated vector management for prevention and control
of malaria and vector-borne diseases.
Cross-Sectoral
Surveillance
Cross-sectoral
surveillance focuses on development of methods to carry out integrated
analysis of epidemiological, environmental, demographic and other data to
improve prevention and control of malaria, other vector-borne diseases,
and other environmental health problems. Cross-Sectoral Surveillance
activities include:
-
Developing and
testing methods for cross-sectoral surveillance
-
Creating tools to
promote cross-sectoral surveillance as national policy
-
Application
and institutionalizing cross-sectoral surveillance approaches in country
settings
Integrated
Vector Management (IVM)
IVM activities test
the effectiveness of vector-control methods and identify the appropriate
settings in which the methods are likely to be effective, particularly in
urban and rural settings in Africa. IVM approaches are promoted as part of
official national malaria control plans and procedures and include:
-
Developing better
tools for vector control, including promoting the use of environmental
management and larval control
-
Developing IVM
strategies appropriate to particular settings
-
Promoting community
participation in vector-control programs
See
also: (http://www.usaid.gov/pop_health/id/malaria/techareas/ivm.html)
Related EHP
Publications: http://www.ehproject.org/Pubs/Topic_Listing.htm.
Related EHP
Briefs:
EHP
Brief 20. Community-based
Environmental Management for Urban Malaria Control in Uganda—Year 1
EHP
Brief 19. The
Nepal Survey on Malaria, Japanese Encephalitis and Kala-azar
EHP
Brief 13. Best Practices for Dengue Control in the
Americas
EHP
Brief 10. Nepal Vector-Borne Disease Program
Update
EHP
Brief 9. Integrated Vector Management for Malaria Control in
Africa
EHP
Brief 8. Malaria Control in Eritrea
EHP
Brief 3. Nepal Vector-Borne Disease
Program
3. LINKING
HEALTH, POPULATION AND THE ENVIRONMENT
Rapid destruction of
Madagascar’s forests and ecological corridors, coupled with a growing
population, initiated USAID’s efforts to assist NGOs and other groups
working in health, population and the environment to link and integrate
health, population and environment (natural resource management) delivery
approaches and activities. EHP has played a major role in supporting the
implementation of integrated activities in 120 Malagasy communities to
increase family planning, practice less destructive natural resource
management methods, increase food production, use forest resources in more
sustainable ways, cross-train field agents in both population and
environment, and work with schools to educate students on the environment
and reproductive health. These activities focus on:
-
Building
an enabling environment through local partnerships and organizational
development
-
Developing
and testing integration models
-
Implementation
support to local NGOs
-
Monitoring,
evaluation and operations research
Related
EHP Publications: http://www.ehproject.org/Pubs/Topic_Listing.htm.
Related
EHP Brief:
EHP Brief 25. Healthy
People in a Healthy Environment: Integrating Population, Health and the
Environment in Madagascar
EHP Brief 2.
Linking Health, Population, and the Environment in Madagascar.
4. URBAN
HEALTH
To better understand
and address the health needs of the developing world’s exploding urban
population, EHP is conducting activities focusing on the following:
-
Increasing available
data related to the urban poor to better define the problems
-
Advocacy for
improving health and other needs of the urban poor
-
Development of
programmatic approaches for effective child health programs in urban poor
settings
Related EHP
Briefs:
EHP
Brief 21. Cairo
Healthy Neighborhood Program.
EHP
Brief 16. Improving Urban Environmental Health in the Democratic
Republic of Congo
EHP
Brief 14. Urban Poor Child Health in Asia and the Near
East
EHP
Brief 6. Improved Hygiene in Kinshasa Markets, Democratic Republic of
Congo
5. IMPROVED
TARGETS, INDICATORS, MONITORING AND EVALUATION FOR WATER, SANITATION, AND
HYGIENE
EHP partners with
other organizations to improve the validity and reliability of existing
water, sanitation, and hygiene (hygiene improvement) indicators and data
collection methods and the development of new indicators and methods where
necessary. Key partners include Water Supply and Sanitation Collaborative
Council (WSSCC), the World Health Organization (WHO), the UN Children’s
Fund (UNICEF), the UN Development Program (UNDP), Water and
Environmental Health at London and Loughborough (WELL), Macro
International Inc., the World Bank, NGOs, and PVOs. This activity is
implemented at three levels—international level, program level, and
community level:
-
At the international level, the focus is on international
consensus-building for key hygiene improvement indicators and data
collection methods.
-
At the program level, activities are designed to improve the
ability of program managers to systematically monitor the effectiveness of
interventions related to water, sanitation and hygiene for programmatic
decision-making in water and sanitation programs as well as health and
child survival programs. The focus of the activities is on the
coordination of the development of methods for collecting data at national
and local levels, since existing indicators and data collection
instruments, such as the Demographic and Health Survey (DHS) and
UNICEF’s Multiple Indicator Cluster Survey (MICS), are mostly
appropriate for international comparisons.
-
At the community level, activities support the development of appropriate
community monitoring tools to improve communities’ abilities to identify
problems and to increase community participation in planning and
monitoring water, sanitation and hygiene activities.
West Africa Water Initiative
(WAWI)
Ghana, Mali, and Niger have been
selected as beneficiary countries for a $41 million West Africa Water
Initiative (WAWI). EHP is providing technical support for the Initiative,
which is supported by a public-private partnership led by the Conrad N.
Hilton Foundation and USAID. Other partners include: World Vision; UNICEF;
WaterAid; Cornell International Institution for Food, Agriculture, and
Development; Winrock International; Lion’s Club International; World
Chlorine Council; Desert Research Institute; the International Trachoma
Institute; and the UN Foundation. The Initiative’s objectives include:
increasing access to potable water and sanitation services among poor and
vulnerable populations; reducing prevalence of waterborne diseases such as
trachoma, guinea worm, and diarrheal disease (especially in children under
five); and ensuring ecologically and financially sustainable management of
water quantity and quality.
Through EHP, USAID's
Bureau for Global Health is playing a leading/coordinating role in
strengthening the monitoring and evaluation component of the Initiative.
For more information on WAWI, go to:
http://www.waterforthepoor.org/initiatives/wawi/wawi.htm
Related EHP
Brief:
EHP
Brief 23. Monitoring
and Evaluation Plan for the West Africa Water Initiative
6. RECONSTRUCTING
WATER SUPPLY, SANITATION AND HYGIENE ACTIVITIES IN AREAS OF CRISIS
Nicaragua
In October 1998,
Hurricane Mitch left unprecedented destruction through the heart of
Central America, leaving thousands dead and billions of dollars in damage.
Nicaragua was hit particularly severely by Hurricane Mitch. USAID
allocated nearly $9.8 million over a 28-month period through the EHP Rural
Water Supply, Sanitation and Environmental Health Reconstruction Program
to rehabilitate the water supply and sanitation infrastructure and improve
hygiene during the Hurricane Mitch aftermath.
Related EHP
Publications: http://www.ehproject.org/Pubs/Topic_Listing.htm.
Related EHP
Brief:
EHP Brief 4.
Protecting the Health of Hurricane Mitch Victims in Nicaragua: The EHP
Rural Water Supply, Sanitation, and Environmental Health Reconstruction
Program
West Bank
USAID with
technical support from EHP also provided substantial support to the West
Bank related to infrastructure and management of water supply and
sanitation services including environmental health assessments. The
assessment was carried out by EHP in collaboration with Save the Children.
Based on assessment findings and recommendations related to access to and
quality of water, health outcomes and socioeconomic changes attributable
to the continuing crisis as well as seasonal factors, EHP has identified
next steps and continues its support to improve the delivery of safe and
sustainable water and sanitation services to 170,000 people living in 50
villages in the West Bank.
Related EHP Publications: http://www.ehproject.org/Pubs/Topic_Listing.htm.
Related EHP Briefs:
EHP Brief 17.
West Bank Village Water and Sanitation Program: Findings from
Environmental Health Assessments
EHP
Brief 15. Water for War-torn West Bank: The Emergency Water Operations
Center (EWOC)
EHP
Brief 5. Programming, Participation, and Partnerships under Duress: The
West Bank Village Water and Sanitation Program
7.
INDOOR AIR POLLUTION
In
collaboration with WHO and with technical support from EHP, USAID
supported a Global Consultation on the Health Impact of Indoor Air
Pollution and Household Energy in Developing Countries (Washington, DC,
May 3-4, 2000). EHP served as the conference secretariat. The consultation
was aimed at an audience interested in household energy, indoor air and
health issues and was attended by participants from USAID, WHO, World
Bank, UNICEF, the Harvard Institute for International Development, NIH,
and PVOs and NGOs.
The meeting
report is available at: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/events/HSD_Plaq_10.pdf
Papers from the
Indoor Air Pollution Consultation include:
Related EHP
reports:
For more
information, contact EHP ([email protected]).
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