Associations between floor material and contamination in rural Bangladeshi households.

Soil floors are common in low-income countries and can harbor contamination from unsafely managed human and animal fecal waste. Soil/dust ingestion directly from floors or indirectly via hands, drinking water and food can significantly contribute to children's ingestion of fecal organisms. We assessed if finished (e.g., concrete) floors are associated with lower contamination in the domestic environment in rural Bangladesh. We collected samples from 1864 households over 3.5 years, including stored drinking water, child and caregiver hand rinses, courtyard soil, food, and flies (n=24,118 samples), and enumerated using IDEXX Quanti-Tray/2000. Controlling for potential confounders (socio-demographics, water/sanitation status, animal ownership), households with finished floors had slightly lower log10-transformed counts (Δlog10= -0.10 (-0.20, 0.00)) and prevalence (prevalence ratio=0.90 (0.83, 0.98)) on child hands than households with soil floors; floor material was not associated with contamination levels in other sample types. Finished floors were associated with lower contamination of child hands, food and stored drinking water following periods of higher rainfall and temperature, and lower contamination of child hands in households with more domestic animals. Measures to control enteric infections in low-income countries should test flooring improvements to reduce exposure to fecal contamination.