Sanitation and Hygiene Policy

This article discusses the importance of a sanitation and hygiene policy in reducing deaths due to diarrheal disease and sanitation issues. It describes the proposed policy and its potential benefits, as well as the issues it addresses and the methods of implementation.

Running head: PUBLIC HEALTH POLICY
Public health policy
Name of the student:
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Author’s note

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Introduction:
Good sanitation and clean water are fundamental elements for basic human rights and
well-beings. However, millions of people including children die every year because of
inadequate water supply, sanitation and hygiene. This occurs mainly because of poor economics
or poor infrastructure. For this reason, the Millennium Development Goals (MDG) has
prioritized ensuring access to water and sanitation for all. This is likely to enhance sanitation
facilities and freshwater ecosystem for countries affected by poor sanitation and hygiene issues.
According to the United Nations reports, 2.4 million people in the world lack access to basic
sanitation services and each day nearly 1, 000 children die due to preventable water and
sanitation related diarrheal issues (Kamara et al., 2017). Bouzid, Cumming and Hunter (2018)
gives the evidence that 8,, 42, 000 diarrheal disease related deaths has been attributed to water,
sanitation and hygiene (WASH) issue thus suggesting that major proportion of disadvantaged
people lack access to safe WASH. In case of Australia, Indigenous Australians living in remote
regions particularly struggle due to lack of access to clean water and sanitation issues. Hence, as
diarrheal disease due to sanitation and hygiene issues contribute to global burden of disease and
mortality, implementing policies to promote sanitation and hygiene is critical for public health
and well-being. Policy related to hygiene and sanitation can facilitate investment in sanitation
and hygiene promotion. The aim of this report is to descriibe a new health policy for sanitation
and hygiene and describes the importance of the policy in reducing deaths due to diarrheal
disease and sanitation issues. The paper also gives insight into the method of implementation of
the policy.

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Description of the health policy:
A new policy titled ‘Sanitation and hygiene policy’ has been proposed to reduce the
burden of disease due to sanitation related diseases and encourage investment in infrastructure
for maintenance of sanitation for long term period. This policy targets changing standards and
practice related to sanitation in Australia, preserving the rights of all related to access to clean
water and sanitation and introducing health promotion and economic incentives to change poor
practices related sanitation and hygiene among public. Apart from urban areas, the policy will
focus on addressing issues related to unpalatable water supplies and damaged infrastructure on
health of indigenous Australian living in rural areas. Hence, by means of these targets, the main
purpose of this policy is to provide healthy environment to all and make communities aware
about the impact of poor practices like open defecation and drinking contaminate water on
health.
By the implementation of the ‘Sanitation and Hygiene Policy’, it is expected to achieve
many positive benefits. Firstly, the policy is likely to reduce the rate of diarrheal disease and
other communicable disease in Australia by the implementation of change in water handling
process, up gradation of sanitation facilities and addressing the risk factors that lead to diarrhoea
because of poor sanitation. In addition, the policy focuses on changing practices and attitudes
towards basic hygiene and sanitation both for public as well as for other involved stakeholders.
Policy action in this area is likely to be very useful because past research evidence suggests that
disease outbreak continues in vulnerable areas despite implementation of interventions to
improve sanitation facilities and provision (Nahimana et al., 2017). Therefore, focussing on
change of attitude is likely to enhance the success of intervention and initiatives to improve
sanitation and hygiene in remote settings of Australia. Hence, the implementation of the policy

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would lead to improvement in hygiene practices, water handing practices and improving
sanitations facilities within household particularly for people with poor socioeconomic issues. It
will also make the community aware about basic hygiene practices and the responsibility of
individual person in keeping their environment safe.
Issues addressed by the health policy:
The utility of the ‘Sanitation and Hygiene Policy’ for public health department of
Australia is that it can play a vital role in reducing diarrheal disease burden and reducing the
prevalence of deaths and morbidities due to diarrhoea. This is said because the policy will
facilitate monitoring of diarrhoea and other infectious cases by region and eliminating key risk
factors present in a region. Oloruntoba, Folarin and Ayede (2014) argues that diarrheal disease
is the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in young children under five years and lack of
safe water and hygiene contributes to 88% of the disease burden due to diarrhoea. Lack of access
to hygienic toilet and contamination of the environment with faecal waste increases risk of
infectious disease burden and quality of life. Poor hand washing practices among mothers is also
linked to diarrheal disease incidence. Baker et al. (2016) gives the evidence that sharing a
sanitation facility with one or more household also increases risk of moderate and severe
diarrhoea. The policy focus of review of diarrhoea case and the methods for case management
will help to identify poor practices such as sharing of toilets and poor hand washing practice.
Hence, the policy will help to identify the cause behind high risk of diarrheal or other infectious
disease and can help to introduce useful changes such as basic hygiene education or
infrastructure changes to increase access to sanitation facilities for all.

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Apart from diarrheal disease, the Sanitation and Hygiene policy has the potential to
reduce risk of other infectious disease in the community. For example, respiratory infection and
gastrointestinal infection is common in community because of aerosol transmissions. The policy
aims to improve practice related to hand hygiene which will ultimately have an impact on
reducing the rate of infectious illness. The initiation of this development because of the
implementation of the policy is likely to be effective because hand hygiene is a vital intervention
to address pandemic public health threats. The introduction of hand hygiene interventions in
different areas is efficacious in preventing gastrointestinal illnesses (Aiello et al., 2008).
As this policy also target access to clean water for all, the implementation of the policy
will play a role in reducing water borne illness such as arsenic poisoning and cholera disease.
The World Health Organization (2016) report mentions that poor drinking water access and poor
sanitation contributes to 4% of all deaths and 5.7% of all disability in the world. This occurs
mainly because of the bacteriological quality of water. Contaminate drinking transmits other
disease like typhoid, malaria, dysentery and polio. As health risk is exacerbated by poor
sanitation, taking vital steps to improve sanitation can prevent infectious disease as well as
reduce social inequities for certain vulnerable group in Australia (Hammer, Brainard & Hunter,
2018). The policy is focussed on identifying risk factors and protecting citizens from unsafe
environment. Hence, reform in the area of sanitation is a crucial part of the Sanitation and
hygiene policy that is likely to mitigate challenges related to sanitation provision and increase
infectious disease transmission.

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Importance of the policy for health:
The significance of this policy is that by focussing on implementing many changes in
practices and infrastructure related to basic sanitation and hygiene in Australia, the policy is
taking direct steps towards health and well-being for the citizens. It targets changes not only
people with disease but also for regulation of practices in other areas such as garbage
management and cleaning, water sanitation, practices in health care setting and schools and
family knowledge and practice related to hand hygiene. Hence, by considering diverse factor that
contribute to disease burden and public health issues, the policy is playing a role in addressing
social determinants of health. For example, in case of indigenous people living in remotes area,
poor hygiene and sharing sanitation facility is a major risk factor of communication disease.
Hence, sanitation can be promoted in this area by basic education program and sanitation
marketing. The policy is likely to facilitate sanitation coverage by the enforcement of local
legislations on basic toilet for each family (Mara et al., 2010). With this approach, sanitation
coverage and adaptation can be increased to ensure that every house has a toilet. Hence, the
enforcement of local legislations through the policy can be effective in reducing the risks of
faecal contamination of the environment and reduce its adverse effects on health.
Another important component of this policy is to enhance community awareness
regarding risk of diseases and risk factors by education on basic hygiene and sanitation. The
importance of targeting education and community awareness related to burden of infectious
disease due to sanitation is that it can not only reduce risk behaviours but also increase
motivation of the citizens towards compliance with basic hand hygiene practices. As poor
sanitation has an impact on different aspects of environment such as health, economy, dignity,
empowerment and personal development, the significance of collateral personal hygiene and

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sanitary education is that it can improve outcomes related to water borne disease, nutrition and
gastro-enteropathy. Effective reduction of poor water and sanitation practices is possible only
when current gaps in knowledge and practices of drinking water and sanitation are addressed
(Kuberan et al., 2015). This means focusing on delivering education not only to the citizens, but
also to other groups involved in transmission of infection such as health care staffs, sewage
managements, industrial workers and other relevant stakeholders. Addo et al. (2017) supports
that targeting knowledge, attitude and practice of hygiene are vital to decrease the disease burden
because they upgrade the standards of hygiene practice for all. Khatoon, et al. (2017) also gives
evidence the benefits of a brief health education related to personal hygiene for students. The
program was associated with an increase in adaption of healthy behaviours. School based
education is a important setting for implementation of such program to promote adaption of
healthy behaviours from young age and reduce the rate of transmissible diseases. Hence, by
targeting community awareness and education, the policy is likely to be meaningful in
attenuating the burden of transmissible disease.
The Sanitation and Hygiene policy is also targeting developing safe environment and
reduce access to risk of disease transmission. The implementation of the policy will promote
investment in infrastructure for safer environment. For example, the problem for people living in
disadvantaged areas is that their house is surrounded by garbage and waste. Community dumps
are the major source of water pollution and ineffective waste management practices is further
detrimental to human and environmental health. Zagozewski et al. (2011) defines that poor
management, monitoring and remediation of solid waste facilities is a major concern among
indigenous group. Hence, by implementing directive to upgrade waste management
infrastructure, the policy is likely to increase the provision of safe environment for people. The

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policy will favour increasing reform related to waste management practices. This would help to
enhance the staff’s understanding regarding type and volume of hazardous wastes and the degree
of segregation and recycling techniques needed to enhance the health of the population.
On the whole, the review of the policy suggests that it will facilitate improvement not
only in the area of waste management infrastructure and facilitation facilities, but also change in
practices and attitude towards basic hygiene in different departments. Hence, this policy will
help in engaging in partnership and integration with various involved sectors like health
promotion agencies, waste management services, sanitation products and services, health care
sector, school and industrial staffs. This form of coordination with governmental and non-
government agencies will ensure that all possible risk that leads to poor sanitation and hygiene
issues are addressed and the community as well as the public health staffs enjoys the benefits of
a safe and clean environment on health.
Methods of implementation of the policy:
The ‘Sanitation and hygiene’ policy will be implemented by the development of
regulations in each area that lead to poor hygiene and sanitation issues in the community. This
will involve developing regulations not only for standards of hand hygiene and basic sanitation
in health care sector, but also by developing regulations in the area of waste management
practices, education related basic hygiene, up gradation of waste disposal infrastructure and
changing practices related to poor use of sanitation facilities. This section will separately define
implementation steps needed for each type of regulations.
To implement the regulation related to community awareness about basic hand hygiene
and sanitation practices, the school and community staffs can be involved. The policy directly

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related to education will mandate all school and community agencies to identify level of service
that are acceptable for good sanitation and hygiene and identify the level of provisions needed
for children or community citizens. Hence, based on this specification, the school administrators
can play a role in arranging programs for school children to increase their knowledge and
practices related to effective hygiene practices and behaviour and improving access to safe water
and sanitation for children attending schools. Duijster et al. (2017) defines that intervention
related to water, sanitation and hygiene interventions may facilitate improvement in practices
and behaviours to domestic environment and then the broader community. School based
sanitation and hygiene intervention is also associated with transfer of knowledge related to
proper hygiene and point of use water treatment practices and interruptions in pathogen
transmission within the public sphere. Evidence by Dreibelbis et al. (2014) shows that when
basic hygiene education is provided to children in schools, this is associated with improvement
in hand washing practices, improvement in number of clean toilets and increase in the
availability of safe drinking water at schools.
To achieve the policy directive on improvement in sanitation infrastructure and
promoting reform in relation to waste management practices in Australia, the implementation
steps that are needed is to increase collaborative initiative between private sectors and
government sectors. The services of IT technology, environmental consultants and waste
management agencies are needed to identify new innovative technology to process and dispose
waste. The collaboration between health promotion staffs and waste management agencies will
help to increase access to sanitation facilities for families with poor income and those living in
remote areas. The importance of partnership during policy implementation is that it will facilitate
expanding the network of stakeholders who can bring positive changes to realize the MDGs. The

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performance of the water and sanitation sector can be enhanced through the implementation of
this policy. They are likely to become more active in increasing efforts to invest adequately in
the investment sectors. The implementation of improvement in sanitation infrastructure will also
resole ambiguities over roles and responsibilities in this sector (Schady, 2015).
Nation level investment will also be needed to implement the policy. For example
investment will be required for equipping staffs with relevant resource to upgrade water and
hygiene facilities in the community. In addition, to facilitate increase in surveillance related to
cases of diarrheal disease and other infectious disease which has occurred due to poor sanitation
issues, there is a need to collaborate with public health staffs and disease surveillance agencies.
This partnership is vital to identify trends in relation to diagnosis of diarrheal and other
infectious disease in Australia. Finally, the successful implementation of the policy is also
dependent on adaptation of new technologies and business approach to ensure that the changes
are sustainable and in favour of future health of the community. The financial aspects that are a
necessary part of the implementation process can be arranged by taking funds from government
agencies and many innovative financing models (Bartram et al., 2018). The incentive schemes
can be implemented for high risk areas as this will help in adherence to new policy directive and
adhering to basic hygiene and sanitation in all areas.
Conclusion:
To conclude, this paper focussed on describing the importance and significance of
‘Sanitation and hygiene’ policy on reducing the burden of diarrheal disease and other infectious
disease. As basic hygiene and clean water is a fundamental human right, the new policy focuses
on introducing all changes that will reduce disparities in relation to access to clean water and

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good sanitation for indigenous Australians and the rest of the pollution. By focussing on the
implementation of appropriate intervention, improving active detection and management of
hygiene case and education on safe handling and waste disposal, the new policy is likely to
increase the burden of case and mortality rate caused due to diarrheal disease. The new policy
will favour appropriate implementation of legislation that will trigger and activate the
mechanisms needed for successful implementation and integration of the policy in different
sectors. Lack of attitude toward basic hygiene is a major barrier that decreases the effectiveness
of WASH interventions. Hence, by targeting education of children and adults and other sectors
regarding education related to basic hand washing and hygiene techniques, the policy is taking
steps to improve both domestic environment and increase the safety of the wider community. It
is recommended that government agencies take active part in the implementation phase so that
all financial and investment related barriers are addressed.

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