New $10.9 million grant to study impacts of sanitation on diseases

BERKELEY — Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have received a five-year, $10.9 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to evaluate several interventions to combat diarrheal disease in developing countries. Dr. Jack Colford, professor of epidemiology at UC Berkeley's School of Public Health, will coordinate the project, working with the International Centre for Diarrheal Disease Research, Bangladesh (ICDDR,B) and Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA). An estimated 2.2 million children under the age of 5 die from diarrheal diseases each year, according to the World Health Organization. Most of these diseases are thought to be preventable with improvements in sanitation, water quality and hygiene. Due to the high cost of developing and maintaining large infrastructure projects, such as networked water, there is now a movement toward simpler, alternative methods to improve health in rural areas. However, there is almost no evidence that allows direct comparison of the health benefits or cost effectiveness of these simpler interventions, such as improved latrines, household water treatment and hand washing with soap. The goal of the new project is to determine how sanitation interventions, delivered alone or as part of combined intervention packages, impact child health and well-being.