The findings, reported in the Lancet Global Health, showed that the intervention increased the average proportion of households in a village with a latrine from 9% to 63%, compared with an increase from 8% to 12% in control villages.1 However, the researchers found no evidence that the intervention protected against diarrhoea in children younger than 5 years; seven day prevalence of reported diarrhoea was 8.8% in the intervention group (data from 1919 children) and 9.1% in the control group (1916 children).
In addition, the intervention did not reduce the prevalence of parasitic worms that are transmitted via soil and can cause reduced physical growth and impaired cognitive function in children, and there was no impact on child weight or height—measures of nutritional status. Similar findings were reported from Madhya Pradesh earlier this year.2