Abramovsky Laura, Augsburg Britta, Lührmann Melanie, Oteiza Francisco, Rud Juan Pablo
The Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), United Kingdom.
Overseas Development Institute (ODI), United Kingdom.
World Dev. 2023 May;165:106197. doi: 10.1016/j.worlddev.2023.106197.
Sanitation is at the heart of public health policies in most of the developing world, where around 85% of the population still lack access to safe sanitation. We study the effectiveness of a widely adopted participatory community-level information intervention aimed at improving sanitation. Results from a randomized controlled trial, implemented at scale in rural Nigeria, reveal stark heterogeneity in impacts: the intervention has immediate, strong and lasting effects on sanitation practices in less wealthy communities, realized through increased sanitation investments. In contrast, we find no evidence of impacts among wealthier communities. This suggests that a targeted implementation of CLTS may increase its effectiveness in improving sanitation. Our findings can be replicated in other contexts, using microdata from evaluations of similar interventions.
在大多数发展中世界，环境卫生是公共卫生政策的核心，在这些地方约85%的人口仍无法获得安全的卫生设施。我们研究了一种广泛采用的旨在改善环境卫生的社区层面参与式信息干预措施的有效性。在尼日利亚农村大规模开展的一项随机对照试验结果显示，影响存在明显的异质性：该干预措施对较贫困社区的卫生习惯有直接、强烈且持久的影响，这是通过增加卫生投资实现的。相比之下，我们没有发现该干预措施对较富裕社区产生影响的证据。这表明有针对性地实施社区主导的环境卫生运动（CLTS）可能会提高其改善环境卫生的有效性。利用来自类似干预措施评估的微观数据，我们的研究结果可以在其他背景下得到复制。
