Using Behaviour Change Messaging to Improve Communal Toilets in Dhaka, Bangladesh

Background (brief): 1. Burden: In low income neighborhoods in Dhaka many households share toilets which are often unsanitary and their discharge contaminates the community. 2. Knowledge gap: Behavior change messages have the potential to make people concerned about maintaining shared toilets quality, cleanliness and safety of the facility. There are many contributors to poor sanitation in low income neighborhoods in Dhaka but it's not clear that the situation can be improved with behavior change or even which specific messages to target. 3. Relevance: Water Sanitation for the Urban Poor (WSUP) is a nongovernmental organization working to improve shared sanitation facilities in Dhaka. They are interested in developing and evaluating a behavior change program to improve shared sanitation in Dhaka and to generate lessons that would be relevant for other low income urban settings globally. Hypothesis: A behavior change communication intervention can improve the quality and cleanliness of sanitation services available to low-income residents of Dhaka. Objectives: 1. To deliver behavior change messages (which target key behaviors influencing the quality and cleanliness of shared sanitation facilities) to randomly selected low-income communities in Dhaka. 2. To evaluate the effectiveness of a behavior change communication intervention designed to change targeted behaviors related to the quality and cleanliness of shared sanitation facilities. Methods: Local non-governmental organizations will deliver the intervention (behavior change communication package) in randomly selected communities. For this study the investigators will assess the impact of this intervention on the targeted behaviors using follow-up surveys and spot checks.