Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Interventions to Reduce Diarrhoea in Less Developed Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

The authors developed a comprehensive research strategy designed to identify all peer-reviewed articles, in any language, that presented water, sanitation, or hygiene interventions. Out of 2,120 publications, ultimately 40 studies were judged to contain relevant evidence. Most of the studies confined their study groups to children aged under 5 or 6 years. The identified studies were done in a wide range of settings, in many countries, and over many years. All of the interventions studied were found to reduce significantly the risks of diarrheal illness. The results generally agree with those from previous reviews, but water quality interventions (point-of-use water treatment) were found to be more effective than previously thought, and multiple interventions (consisting of combined water, sanitation, and hygiene measures) were not more effective than interventions with a single focus