16 Facts About WASH

WASH is an acronym that stands for "water, sanitation and hygiene".

The purposes of providing access to WASH services include achieving public health gains, improving human dignity in the case of sanitation, implementing the human right to water and sanitation, reducing the burden of collecting drinking water for women, reducing risks of violence against women, improving education and health outcomes at schools and health facilities, and reducing water pollution.

Access to WASH services is an important component of water security.

Universal, affordable and sustainable access to WASH is a key issue within international development and is the focus of the first two targets of Sustainable Development Goal 6 .

Typical diseases and conditions associated with lack of WASH include diarrhea, malnutrition and stunting, in addition to neglected tropical diseases.

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Lack of WASH poses additional health risks for women, for example during pregnancy, or in connection with menstrual hygiene management.

Still, collecting precise scientific evidence regarding health outcomes that result from improved access to WASH is difficult due to a range of complicating factors.

Access to WASH needs to be provided at the household level but in non-household settings like schools, healthcare facilities, workplaces, temporary use settings, mass gatherings, and for dislocated populations.

Purposes of providing access to WASH services include achieving public health gains, improving human dignity in the case of sanitation, implementing the human right to water and sanitation, reducing the burden of collecting drinking water for women, reducing risks of violence against women, improving education and health outcomes at schools and health facilities, and reducing water pollution.

Access to WASH services is an important component of water security.

The nature of WASH interventions is such that high quality trials, such as randomized controlled trials, are expensive, difficult and in many cases not ethical.

Blind studies of WASH interventions pose ethical challenges and difficulties associated with implementing new technologies or behavioral changes without participant's knowledge.

However, a challenge with WASH behavioral intervention studies is an inability to ensure compliance with such interventions, especially when studies rely on self-reporting of disease rates.

Non-household settings for WASH include the following six types: schools, health care facilities, workplaces, temporary use settings, mass gatherings, and dislocated populations.

The poorest populations often cannot afford fees required for operation and maintenance of WASH infrastructure, preventing them from benefitting even when systems do exist.

Abbreviation "WASH" was used from the year 1988 onwards as an acronym for the "Water and Sanitation for Health" Project of the United States Agency for International Development.