Workshop timings are as follows: July 18 & 19: 2 PM-5.30 PM, July 20: 9 AM-5 PM
Lack of access to safe drinking water and poor personal hygiene behavior are two leading causes of diarrheal diseases and respiratory infections among elementary school children in South Asian countries including India. Intervention programs on promoting safe water (SW) and handwashing (HW) in schools can effectively reduce the risk of these diseases although they often fail to achieve sustainability due to participation of key stakeholders (e.g. school teachers and parents) in the intervention design process. An emerging public health challenge is the presence of antibiotic resistant bacteria (ARB) in poorly-managed environment, which has received minimal attention while designing educational programs and awareness building activities on SW and HW. We hypothesize that a school-based SW plus HW intervention designed through a bottom-up community participatory approach can substantially reduce the incidence of communicable diseases such as diarrhea and respiratory infections in children in low-income communities in New Delhi, India. Additionally, we will test the hypothesis that sharing knowledge on pathogenic bacteria and their antibiotic resistant characteristics with teachers and children in schools can also have a positive impact on children’s HW and SW behavior.
We have assembled an interdisciplinary group of faculty and researchers from three departments of Indiana University Bloomington (i.e. Environmental and Occupational Health, Anthropology and Biology), two universities in India (i.e. Ambedkar University Delhi and Amity University Uttar Pradesh) and two community-based organizations (i.e. Accountability in Research, Implementation and Evaluation and Sustainable Environment and Ecological Development Society) to design and evaluate a school-based intervention on SW and HW. Concurrently, staff training, capacity building via computer short-courses, research activities for faculty and students of Indiana University and yearly symposium will be implemented at the IU India Gateway in New Delhi. The gateway activities aim to enhance the interactions and exchange of knowledge between researchers of all participating organizations and create opportunities for long-standing sustainable interdisciplinary research partnership.
In July, 2018, researchers from all partner organizations will meet to discuss various aspects of the projects including scientific and logistic issues and finalize the work plan for the PIRA project.
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Khalid Khan
Assistant Professor, Department of Environmental and Occupational Health
Core Faculty, Dhar India Studies Program
School of Public Health Building Room 025E
Indiana University-Bloomington
E-mail: kmkhan@indiana.edu; kmk2129@gmail.com
Phone: +1-812-856-2229 (Office); +1-646-305-2566 (Cellular)
