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Switching to sanitation: Understanding latrine adoption in a representative panel of rural Indian households

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  • Coffey, Diane
  • Spears, Dean
  • Vyas, Sangita

Abstract

Open defecation, which is still practiced by about a billion people worldwide, is one of the most compelling examples of how place influences health in developing countries. Efforts by governments and development organizations to address the world's remaining open defecation would be greatly supported by a better understanding of why some people adopt latrines and others do not. We analyze the 2005 and 2012 rounds of the India Human Development Survey (IHDS), a nationally representative panel of households in India, the country which is home to 60% of the people worldwide who defecate in the open. Among rural households that defecated in the open in 2005, we investigate what baseline properties and what changes over time are associated with switching to latrine use between 2005 and 2012. We find that households that are richer or better educated, that have certain demographic properties, or that improved their homes over this period were more likely to switch to using a latrine or toilet. However, each of these effect sizes is small; overall switching to latrine use from open defecation is low; and no ready household-level mechanisms are available for sanitation programs to widely influence these factors. Our research adds to a growing consensus in the literature that the social context should not be overlooked when trying to understand and bring about change in sanitation behavior.

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  • Coffey, Diane & Spears, Dean & Vyas, Sangita, 2017. "Switching to sanitation: Understanding latrine adoption in a representative panel of rural Indian households," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 188(C), pages 41-50.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:188:y:2017:i:c:p:41-50
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2017.07.001
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    2. Abraham Marshall Nunbogu & Miriam Harter & Hans-Joachim Mosler, 2019. "Factors Associated with Levels of Latrine Completion and Consequent Latrine Use in Northern Ghana," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 16(6), pages 1-18, March.
    3. Pritha Chatterjee & Rockli Kim & Akshay Swaminathan & Rakesh Kumar & S.V. Subramanian, 2019. "From Administrative to Political Evaluation: Estimating Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Indicators for Parliamentary Constituencies in India," Journal of Development Policy and Practice, , vol. 4(2), pages 188-212, July.
    4. Renee De Shay & Dawn L. Comeau & Gloria D. Sclar & Parimita Routray & Bethany A. Caruso, 2020. "Community Perceptions of a Multilevel Sanitation Behavior Change Intervention in Rural Odisha, India," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(12), pages 1-16, June.
    5. Pakhtigian, Emily L. & Dickinson, Katherine L. & Orgill-Meyer, Jennifer & Pattanayak, Subhrendu K., 2022. "Sustaining latrine use: Peers, policies, and sanitation behaviors," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 200(C), pages 223-242.
    6. Basilua Andre Muzembo & Kei Kitahara & Anusuya Debnath & Ayumu Ohno & Keinosuke Okamoto & Shin-Ichi Miyoshi, 2022. "Cholera Outbreaks in India, 2011–2020: A Systematic Review," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(9), pages 1-27, May.
    7. Pakhtigian, Emily L. & Pattanayak, Subhrendu K., 2024. "Social setting, gender, and preferences for improved sanitation: Evidence from experimental games in rural India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 177(C).
    8. Artwell Kanda & Esper Jacobeth Ncube & Kuku Voyi, 2021. "Adapting Sanitation Needs to a Latrine Design (and Its Upgradable Models): A Mixed Method Study under Lower Middle-Income Rural Settings," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(23), pages 1-19, December.
    9. Page, Abigail E. & Minter, Tessa & Viguier, Sylvain & Migliano, Andrea Bamberg, 2018. "Hunter-gatherer health and development policy: How the promotion of sedentism worsens the Agta's health outcomes," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 197(C), pages 39-48.
    10. Anna Lunn, 2020. "Urban family ties and household latrines in rural India: A cross-sectional analysis of national data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-19, July.
    11. Sania Ashraf & Cristina Bicchieri & Upasak Das. Alex Shpenev, 2023. "Valuing Open Defecation Free Surroundings: Experimental Evidence from a Norm-Based Intervention in India," Papers 2312.16205, arXiv.org.
    12. Lipscomb, Molly & Schechter, Laura, 2018. "Subsidies versus mental accounting nudges: Harnessing mobile payment systems to improve sanitation," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 235-254.

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