According to a research published in the famous international science magazine Nature, India’s Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM) may have helped save 60,000-70,000 baby deaths per year. The study was undertaken by five researchers, and the paper published in Nature is titled ‘Toilet building under the Swachh Bharat Mission and newborn mortality in India’.
On October 2, 2014, Prime Minister Narendra Modi began SBM, the world’s largest sanitation campaign, with the goal of eliminating open defecation in India by 2020. During these six years, the government constructed over 100 million family toilets and proclaimed over six lakh villages free of open defecation.
Five researchers, Suman Chakrabarti, Soyra Gune, Tim A Bruckner, Julie Strominger, and Parvati Singh, have authored the article which says a quasi-experimental study was done to investigate the association between SBM and infant mortality rate and under five mortality rates (U5MR) in India. Data from 35 Indian states and 640 districts was analyzed spanning 10 years (2011–2020).
What the Study Found
“The post-SBM period in India exhibited accelerated reductions in infant and child mortality compared to the pre-SBM years. Based on our regression estimates, the provision of toilets at-scale may have contributed to averting approximately 60,000–70,000 infant deaths annually,” the article has mentioned. Results from the study suggest every 10-percentage point increase in district-level toilet access following SBM corresponds with a reduction in district-level IMR by 0.9 points and U5MR by 1.1 points, on average.
Improvement of water and sanitation conditions may reduce infant mortality, particularly in countries like India where open defecation is highly prevalent, the article says.
“Our study provides evidence of the benefits of India’s national sanitation campaign, the Swachh Bharat Mission or Clean India Mission, for infant and child mortality reduction. Our findings add to the growing body of evidence linking national sanitation campaigns to improved child health outcomes and emphasizes the need for similar interventions in other low- and middle-income countries,” the article mentions.
The study found evidence of a threshold effect wherein the district-level toilet coverage of 30 per cent (and above) corresponds with substantial reductions in infant and child mortality. “Our study provides novel evidence of reductions in infant and child mortality following a comprehensive national sanitation program in India, potentially indicating the transformative role of SBM,” the article says.
Why Deaths Happened Earlier
The article says that Infant and child mortality due to faecal pathogen-based infections (diarrhoea, in particular) and malabsorption of nutrients may decline following improved access to toilets and elimination of open defecation.
It adds that it is essential to interpret these findings in light of India’s existing primary health care infrastructure, which provides a considerable portion of the population with preventive and curative health services that address various diseases stemming from inadequate sanitation and resulting in child mortality.
“Consequently, the effectiveness of the SBM may have been influenced by the availability of universal health services. We contend that that the benefits of improved sanitation measures may vary based on availability of comprehensive healthcare access and synergistic programming aspects of the SBM campaign, above and beyond toilet construction, in relation to behaviour change and oral-faecal exposure to contaminants,” the article says.
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Source: NEWS18
