Resources / Does ‘improved’ Sanitation make Children Healthier? Household pit latrines and child health in rural Ethiopia

Summary

Using the Young Lives pro-poor longitudinal data of Ethiopian children, this research uses propensity score matching to test the assumption that universal access to pit latrines will lead to improved health outcomes. The findings show that there is no significant difference between groups in terms of health outcomes and that a pit latrine does not necessarily signal improved methods of waste disposal. Individual and group interviews conducted suggest that poor infrastructure and care for pit latrines deter children from using such facilities and promote a preference for the use of other methods of waste disposal.