Thomas Elizabeth D, Kwong Laura H, Rimi Nadia Ali, Shanta Ireen Sultana, Uddin Mohammad Rofi, Khan Shifat, Akter Salma, Monirul Ahasan S M, Alam Mahbub-Ul, Rahman Mahbubur, Huda Tarique Md Nurul, Winch Peter J
Department of International Health, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, Maryland, United States of America.
Department of Environmental Health Sciences, University of California, Berkeley, Berkeley, California, United States of America.
PLOS Glob Public Health. 2025 Jul 22;5(7):e0004929. doi: 10.1371/journal.pgph.0004929. eCollection 2025.
Backyard poultry-rearing contributes to income and food security for rural households in low- and middle-income countries. However, poultry are often kept inside the household dwelling at night, posing health risks to the people raising them. Housing poultry separately from the dwelling overnight is a potential intervention to limit exposure to poultry. The aim of this study was to describe practices and determinants of overnight poultry housing in rural Bangladesh as formative research for an intervention to separate young children from poultry and poultry feces. We conducted 19 transect walks in villages across Bangladesh to document overnight housing practices among backyard poultry raisers. We then conducted 27 semi-structured interviews to explore poultry-raising practices, including housing types and materials identified during transect walks. We found overnight poultry housing both inside and separate from the dwelling and found that most poultry raisers who kept their birds separate from the dwelling overnight did so in courtyard sheds. There was a preference and willingness to house birds outside, provided a shed was available, although overnight housing practices fluctuated. Having a shed was a function of household resources, including availability and access to materials and skilled labor, available physical space, area- and village-wide trends, and the preferences and concerns of poultry raisers. We recommend that future studies measuring human exposure to poultry and poultry feces assess exposure prospectively and at regular intervals to capture variations in housing practice, and include assessments of poultry housing hygiene practices. The promotion of sheds for overnight poultry housing may be an acceptable intervention approach in this setting, though programs will need to make recommendations for housing that address the risk of zoonotic disease transmission and accommodate the preferences and constraints of poultry raisers over a one-size-fits-all approach.
在低收入和中等收入国家，家庭后院养殖家禽有助于农村家庭实现收入增长和粮食安全。然而，家禽夜间通常饲养在住户居所内，这对饲养家禽的人构成健康风险。夜间将家禽与居所分开饲养是一种限制接触家禽的潜在干预措施。本研究的目的是描述孟加拉国农村地区夜间家禽饲养的做法和决定因素，作为一项将幼儿与家禽及家禽粪便隔离开来的干预措施的形成性研究。我们在孟加拉国各地的村庄进行了19次横断面走访，记录家庭后院家禽饲养者的夜间饲养做法。然后，我们进行了27次半结构化访谈，以探讨家禽饲养做法，包括横断面走访中确定的饲养类型和材料。我们发现，家禽夜间既饲养在居所内，也有与居所分开饲养的情况，并且发现大多数夜间将家禽与居所分开饲养的饲养者是在庭院棚舍中这样做的。如果有棚舍，人们倾向并愿意将家禽饲养在户外，尽管夜间饲养做法存在波动。拥有棚舍取决于家庭资源，包括材料和熟练劳动力的可得性和获取途径、可用的物理空间、地区和村庄范围内的趋势，以及家禽饲养者的偏好和担忧。我们建议，未来测量人类接触家禽及家禽粪便情况的研究应前瞻性地定期评估接触情况，以捕捉饲养做法的变化，并包括对家禽饲养卫生做法的评估。在这种情况下，推广用于家禽夜间饲养的棚舍可能是一种可接受的干预方法，不过相关项目需要针对饲养提出建议，以解决人畜共患病传播风险问题，并适应家禽饲养者的偏好和限制，而不是采取一刀切的方法。
