Quantitative evaluation of water, sanitation, and hygiene measures on COVID-19 pandemic peak reduction in the Philippines.

Item request has been placed! ×
Item request cannot be made. ×
loading   Processing Request
Read More Add to Saved list
  • Additional Information
    • Source:
      Publisher: Elsevier Country of Publication: Netherlands NLM ID: 0330500 Publication Model: Print-Electronic Cited Medium: Internet ISSN: 1879-1026 (Electronic) Linking ISSN: 00489697 NLM ISO Abbreviation: Sci Total Environ Subsets: MEDLINE
    • Publication Information:
      Original Publication: Amsterdam, Elsevier.
    • Subject Terms:
      COVID-19*/prevention & control ; COVID-19*/epidemiology ; Sanitation* ; Hygiene*; Philippines/epidemiology ; Humans ; Water Supply ; Pandemics/prevention & control ; Incidence ; SARS-CoV-2
    • Abstract:
      New cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are continually being recorded worldwide, despite global efforts in implementing non-pharmaceutical interventions and establishing vaccination programs. This trend highlights the need to identify the factors associated with the continued spread of COVID-19. The World Health Organization recommends hand washing as a cost-effective intervention for preventing COVID-19, indicating that water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) are central to the prevention of the disease. However, low- and middle-income countries lack adequate access to WaSH, which increases the risk of contracting COVID-19. The aim of this study was to identify the WaSH factors associated with the incidence of COVID-19 and quantitatively estimate the effects of improvements in WaSH on reducing the incidence of COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic. Lasso regression and extreme gradient boosting models were used to identify the WaSH factors. Distinct estimation models were developed to assess the effect of WaSH in rural regions under two assumptions: increasing regional basic sanitation coverage up to 25 % and 50%. The reduction in the incidence of COVID-19 during the peak of the pandemic was calculated for each rural region. The results of the analyses indicated that basic sanitation is important for reducing the incidence of COVID-19 in rural regions compared to urban regions in the Philippines. In addition, the results suggested that increasing basic sanitation coverage could reduce the incidence of COVID-19 by 2-66 %, alleviating the burden on healthcare facilities. This study indicates that improved basic sanitation infrastructure are needed in rural Philippines. The results of this study emphasise the significance of WaSH as an indicator of COVID-19 incidence, highlighting the need for its enhancement to enable the achievement of sustainable disease prevention and pandemic preparedness goals.
      Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.
      (Copyright © 2024 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.)
    • Contributed Indexing:
      Keywords: Basic sanitation; COVID-19 incidence; LASSO; Pandemic; Philippines; XGBoost
    • Publication Date:
      Date Created: 20240727 Date Completed: 20240816 Latest Revision: 20240816
    • Publication Date:
      20240816
    • Accession Number:
      10.1016/j.scitotenv.2024.175055
    • Accession Number:
      39067604