ArticleJournal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology2020
Age-related changes to environmental exposure: variation in the frequency that young children place hands and objects in their mouths.
Article in Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. An erratum has been issued. Cited by 29 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
29 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 51 citations in OpenAlex.
- Is detection of enteropathogens and human or animal faecal markers in the environment associated with subsequent child enteric infections and growth: an individual participant data meta-analysis.The Lancet. Global health · 2024Pooled it
- Water, sanitation, handwashing, and nutritional interventions can reduce child antibiotic use: evidence from Bangladesh and Kenya.Nature communications · 2025Trial
- Ingestion of Fecal Bacteria along Multiple Pathways by Young Children in Rural Bangladesh Participating in a Cluster-Randomized Trial of Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Interventions (WASH Benefits).Environmental science & technology · 2020Trial
- Impact of a demand-side integrated WASH and nutrition community-based care group intervention on behavioural change: a randomised controlled trial in western Kenya.BMJ global health · 2020Trial
- Effect of Sanitation Improvements on Pathogens and Microbial Source Tracking Markers in the Rural Bangladeshi Household Environment.Environmental science & technology · 2020Trial
- Effects of improved water, sanitation, and hygiene and improved complementary feeding on environmental enteric dysfunction in children in rural Zimbabwe: A cluster-randomized controlled trial.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2020Trial
- Trial
- Age-specific time-spent patterns among residents living near gold mine tailings storage facilities in the West Rand, South Africa.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2026Article
- Seasonally Varying Effects of Improved Water, Sanitation, and Handwashing Interventions onOpen forum infectious diseases · 2026Article
- Development and evaluation of a computer vision algorithm for quantification of children's microactivities.Journal of exposure science & environmental epidemiology · 2026Article
- Pathogens Associated with Domestic Cats (Pathogens (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Videography of pathways for enteric pathogen exposure among children in urban informal settlements in Fiji and Indonesia.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Parental reporting of activities relevant for young children's soil/dust ingestion.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Analysis of durations and frequencies of mouthing behaviors in children 6 months to 6 years: an advanced videotaping and translation approach.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
- Seasonally varying effects of improved water, sanitation and handwashing interventions on Giardia infection in Bangladesh.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Zoonotic and Environmental Sources of Infant Enteric Pathogen Infections Identified with Longitudinal Sampling.Environmental science & technology · 2025Article
- Potential pathogens and antimicrobial resistance genes in household environments: a study of soil floors and cow dung in rural Bangladesh.Applied and environmental microbiology · 2025Article
- Quantitative multi-pathway assessment of exposure to Escherichia coli for infants in Rural Ethiopia.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2025Article
- Poisoning Epidemiology, Clinical Outcomes and Management Decisions for General Public Calls: A Cross-Sectional Analysis of a Nationwide Telehealth Toxicology Consultation Service Data in Saudi Arabia.Journal of epidemiology and global health · 2025Article
- Effects of household concrete floors on maternal and child health: the CRADLE trial - a randomised controlled trial protocol.BMJ open · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
- Erratum issued
Authors and funding
6 authors at 5 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Children are exposed to environmental contaminants through direct ingestion of water, food, soil, and feces, and through indirect ingestion owing to mouthing hands and objects. We quantified ingestion among 30 rural Bangladeshi children < 4 years old, recording every item touched or mouthed during 6-hour video observations that occurred annually for 3 years. We calculated the frequency and duration of mouthing and the prevalence of mouth contacts with soil and feces. We compared the mouthing frequency distributions to those from US children to evaluate the appropriateness of applying the US data to the Bangladeshi context. Median hand-mouthing frequency was 43-72 times/h and object-mouthing frequency 17-34 times/h among the five age groups assessed. For half of the observations, > 75% of all hand mouthing was associated with eating. The frequency of indoor hand mouthing not related to eating was similar to the frequency of all indoor hand mouthing among children in the United States. Object-mouthing frequency was higher among Bangladeshi children compared with US children. There was low intra-child correlation of mouthing frequencies over our longitudinal visits. Our results suggest that children's hand- and object-mouthing vary by geography and culture and that future exposure assessments can be cross-sectional if the goal is to estimate population-level distributions of mouthing frequencies. Of all observations, a child consumed soil in 23% and feces in 1%.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.