Water, sanitation, and hygiene practices among rural households and related health impacts: a case study from some North Indian villages

The present study was carried out to assess the water availability, hygiene practices, and sanitary conditions in the households of open defecation-free (ODF) villages after achieving ODF status. Monitoring was conducted from 360 households of 9 ODF villages from 3 blocks of the Kurukshetra district of north India, using a questionnaire. The results interpreted that 78.33% of the surveyed population were using water supplied from government borewells and 65.55% of respondents agreed that their water is safe for drinking as they did not have any water-related diseases. Many respondents (57.2%) replied that someone in their family had suffered from waterborne disease in the preceding year. About 42.8% of households were treating their drinking water at the house level through methods like boiling, chlorination, and reverse osmosis systems. 90.8% of respondents said that they have access to a functional latrine facility. However, 5% population responded that they still prefer fields for open defecation (OD). Logistic regression results showed that the presence of garbage or litter and stagnant water near the household were associated with an increased risk of disease occurrence among the households. The findings suggested that people should maintain good sanitation and hygiene in their household surroundings to avoid health problems.