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Field
Last Published
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Before
December 23, 2020 06:42 AM
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After
December 24, 2020 02:12 AM
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Field
Intervention (Public)
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Before
In line with the overall goals of HBCC for reducing the transmission of COVID-19 via rapid response interventions to raise awareness and enacting long-term behaviour change regarding people’s personal and environmental hygiene habits, BRAC has taken an adaptive approach under the Hygiene and Behaviour Change Collation (HBCC) platform. The aim of this project is to systematically change the behaviour of people across communities in Bangladesh via interventions such as setting up handwashing stations and broadcasting behaviourally-informed messages to nudge people to adopt healthier prevention and response practices.
To achieve the overall goals of the project and positively impact the lives of over 10 million people in communities across Bangladesh, BRAC primarily chose 20 sub-districts from 3 divisions (out of a total of 8 divisions) for implementing the interventions, namely Dhaka, Mymensingh and Khulna. The prime activity is to install 1,000 handwashing stations across these sub-districts to increase the access of communities to handwashing facilities. The BRAC handwashing stations have been designed to enhance both availability and inclusiveness, fitted with foot-operated pedals for dispensing water and liquid soap, to reduce contact with sink surfaces and thereby reduce probability of transmission from the device surface. They have been fitted with posters, promoting handwashing with proper technique, and have also been designed to allow hand-washers to maintain social distance while using the devices.
In addition to these handwashing stations, there are other supports available in the intervention areas i.e. in-person demonstration, hygiene meetings and soap distribution. After the economy opened up in Bangladesh after a long lockdown, the community engagement activities in the form of in person communication and forum discussions, to motivate people to uptake safe hygiene behaviours including but not limited to regular handwashing. In these demonstrations and meetings, the participants are motivated to adopt recommended hygiene behaviours such as handwashing with soap, mask usage and disposal, sneezing etiquette, social distancing, etc.
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After
In line with the overall goals of HBCC for reducing the transmission of COVID-19 via rapid response interventions to raise awareness and enacting long-term behaviour change regarding people’s personal and environmental hygiene habits, BRAC has taken an adaptive approach under the Hygiene and Behaviour Change Collation (HBCC) platform. The aim of this project is to systematically change the behaviour of people across communities in Bangladesh via interventions such as setting up handwashing stations and broadcasting behaviourally-informed messages to nudge people to adopt healthier prevention and response practices.
To achieve the overall goals of the project and positively impact the lives of over 10 million people in communities across Bangladesh, BRAC primarily chose 20 sub-districts from 3 divisions (out of a total of 8 divisions) for implementing the interventions, namely Dhaka, Mymensingh and Khulna. The prime activity is to install 1,000 handwashing stations across these sub-districts to increase the access of communities to handwashing facilities. The BRAC handwashing stations have been designed to enhance both availability and inclusiveness, fitted with foot-operated pedals for dispensing water and liquid soap, to reduce contact with sink surfaces and thereby reduce probability of transmission from the device surface. They have been fitted with posters, promoting handwashing with proper technique, and have also been designed to allow hand-washers to maintain social distance while using the devices.
In addition to these handwashing stations, there are other supports available in the intervention areas i.e. in-person demonstration, hygiene meetings, and soap distribution. After the economy opened up in Bangladesh after a long lockdown, the community engagement activities in the form of in-person communication and forum discussions, to motivate people to uptake safe hygiene behaviours including but not limited to regular handwashing. In these demonstrations and meetings, the participants are motivated to adopt recommended hygiene behaviours such as handwashing with soap, mask usage and disposal, sneezing etiquette, social distancing, etc. Along with the BRAC staff, the WASH entrepreneurs who are members of the local community whom BRAC traditionally supports with free training in entrepreneurship and market development to improve the communities' access and knowledge of hygiene products. The HBCC project empowers them with responsibilities to disseminate the messages of the recommended behaviours and distribute the soap in the communities across the intervention areas, especially the poorest of the poor community and the participants who attend the meetings regularly.
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Field
Primary Outcomes (End Points)
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Before
The main outcome variables of interest in this study are – i) use of HWS measured with binary response, ii) recalled frequencies of using HWS measured in numbers in the last seven days, iii) duration of handwashing at both HWS and home measured in seconds, iv) using soap while washing hands at both HWS and home measured with binary responses, v) monthly expenditure on soap used for handwashing measured in BDT.
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After
The main outcome variables of interest in this study are – i) duration of handwashing measured in seconds, i) using soap while washing hands measured with binary responses, iii) monthly expenditure on soap used for handwashing measured in BDT, iv) prevalence of coronavirus related symptoms and other diseases.
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Field
Experimental Design (Public)
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Before
To understand whether access to public handwashing stations improves people’s hygiene practices, we collected a list of potential villages from BRAC-WASH programme where BRAC can install the public handwashing stations. Then we randomly selected 10 villages of which 5 villages are assigned to the control group, which will not receive HBCC interventions (i.e. no new public handwashing stations or related community demonstrations/communications). And , the rest 5 villages are assigned to the treatment group where BRAC’s WASH team must implement the HBCC interventions. We have 98 villages (from 20 sub-districts) to control and 96 to treatment. Because of insufficient number of village selection in Khulna city, we had to reduce the number of treatment and control villages from this sub-district. In the rest of the villages listed, the program may/may not be implemented.
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After
To understand whether access to public handwashing stations improves people’s hygiene practices, we collected a list of potential villages from BRAC-WASH programme where BRAC can install the public handwashing stations in their selected 20 sub-districts from three divisions-Dhaka, Mymensingh and Khulna. Then, from each of these 20 sub-districts we randomly selected 10 villages, of which 5 villages are assigned to the control group, which will not receive HBCC interventions (i.e., no new public handwashing stations or related community demonstrations/communications). The rest of the 5 villages are assigned to the treatment group where BRAC’s WASH team must implement the HBCC interventions. We have 98 villages (from 20 sub-districts) to control and 96 to treatment. Because of an insufficient number of village selection in Khulna city (one of the 20 sub-districts), we had to reduce the number of treatment and control villages from this sub-district. In the rest of the villages listed, the program may/may not be implemented.
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Field
Randomization Method
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Before
We collected the list of potential villages from the BRAC-WASH programme. They selected these villages based on some selection criteria (i.e. presence of BRAC’s WASH programme, the scope of collaboration with BRAC’s other programmes, the existence of WASH entrepreneurs, potential partnership and collaboration with stakeholders such as Pourashavas, Upazila, and Union parishads, educational institutions, etc.). Then, we randomized the villages using STATA.
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After
We collected the list of potential villages from the BRAC-WASH programme. They selected these villages based on some selection criteria (i.e., presence of BRAC’s WASH programme, the scope of collaboration with BRAC’s other programmes, the existence of WASH entrepreneurs, potential partnership and collaboration with stakeholders such as Pourashavas, Upazila, and Union parishads, educational institutions, etc.). Then, we randomized the villages using STATA.
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