Formative research on sanitation and hygiene behaviours: current status, knowledge, attitudes, barriers and enablers: primary research findings

Hygiene behaviours in WASH need to be studied from a local context. There is no shortcut to working on behaviour change, without going directly to listen to and observe the reasons for prevailing hygiene practices in the contexts in which these are practised. There is dearth of formative research on hygiene behaviours. This Research was conducted in Vaishali district of Bihar in mid-2011. It looks at prevailing status, knowledge, attitudes, barriers and enablers for key hygiene behaviours. The research identified reasons behind technology failure in toilet construction (that was identified as the single biggest factor for non-use of toilets in India) as arising from the contracted out toilet construction process and not as technology failure per se. The research explored toilet use, hand washing and safe disposal of child faeces from a disaggregated perspective of gender and social stratification, in the mixed caste rural context of Bihar. Given the population and social complexity of a single district in India and the fact that a district is a comprehensive administrative unit for all development and administrative programmes in India, the research findings provide inputs to prioritising behaviour change communication strategies to address key hygiene behaviours, that may be applied to the particular district or used for developing a state strategy. [authors abstract ]