ArticleInternational journal of environmental research and public health2020
Understanding Open Defecation in the Age of
Article in International journal of environmental research and public health, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 18 papers.
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Who cites it
18 citing papers in PubMed.
- Epidemiology of soil transmitted helminths and risk analysis of hookworm infections in the community: Results from the DeWorm3 Trial in southern India.PLoS neglected tropical diseases · 2021Trial
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- An exploratory study on shared sanitation and equity in peri-urban India.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Designing equity-focused sanitation policies in Sub-Saharan Africa: the critical role of subnational data.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Prevalence and burden of no-toilet households in India: an analysis of 261,746 households in 36 states/Union Territories in 2022-2023.Global health action · 2025Article
- Progress in child nutrition outcomes: insights from India's recent experience.BMC public health · 2025Article
- Social and physical environment effects on toileting disability among older adults in India.BMC geriatrics · 2024Article
- The process, outcomes and context of the sanitation change induced by the Swachh Bharat Mission in rural Jharkhand, India.BMC public health · 2024Article
- Examining toilet use and menstrual hygiene practices among beneficiary households of Swachh Bharat Abhiyaan (Clean India Mission) in rural areas of Mayurbhanj district of Odisha, India.Journal of family medicine and primary care · 2024Article
- Development of a behaviour change intervention to promote sanitation and latrine use in rural India.BMC public health · 2023Review
- Prevalence of zero-sanitation in India: Patterns of change across the states and Union Territories, 1993-2021.Journal of global health · 2023Article
- Article
- The Association between Anthropometric Failure and Toilet Types: A Cross-Sectional Study from India.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2023Article
- Moving Up the Sanitation Ladder: A Study of the Coverage and Utilization of Improved Sanitation Facilities and Associated Factors Among Households in Southern Ethiopia.Environmental health insights · 2022Article
- Effect of school-based educational water, sanitation, and hygiene intervention on student's knowledge in a resource-limited setting.BMC public health · 2021Article
- Advancing health equity through a theoretically critical implementation science.Translational behavioral medicine · 2021Article
- Household sanitation access and risk for non-marital sexual violence among a nationally representative sample of women in India, 2015-16.SSM - population health · 2021Article
- What Drives Open-air Defecation and How Widespread Is It? A Mixed Methods Study from a Tribal Predominant Block of Jharkhand, India.Indian journal of community medicine : official publication of Indian Association of Preventive & Social MedicineArticle
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Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Swachh Bharat Abhiyan, India's flagship sanitation intervention, set out to end open defecation by October 2019. While the program improved toilet coverage nationally, large regional disparities in construction and use remain. Our study used ethnographic methods to explore perspectives on open defecation and latrine use, and the socio-economic and political reasons for these perspectives, in rural Bihar. We draw on insights from social epidemiology and political ecology to explore the structural determinants of latrine ownership and use. Though researchers have often pointed to rural residents' preference for open defecation, we found that people were aware of its many risks. We also found that (i) while sanitation research and "behavior change" campaigns often conflate the reluctance to adopt latrines with a preference for open defecation, this is an erroneous conflation; (ii) a subsidy can help (some) households to construct latrines but the amount of the subsidy and the manner of its disbursement are key to its usefulness; and (iii) widespread resentment towards what many rural residents view as a development bias against rural areas reinforces distrust towards the government overall and its Swachh Bharat Abhiyan-funded latrines in particular. These social-structural explanations for the slow uptake of sanitation in rural Bihar (and potentially elsewhere) deserve more attention in sanitation research and promotion efforts.
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