The toilet tripod: Understanding successful sanitation in rural India
Open accessAbstract
Building toilets and getting people to use them is critical for public health. We deployed a political ecology approach specifically to identify the multi-scalar political, economic, and environmental factors influencing toilet adoption in rural India. The research used ethnographic and technical methods in rural villages of West Bengal and Himachal Pradesh over the period September 2012 to May 2013. The elements of successful sanitation adoption depended on three factors (i.e., toilet tripod): (1) multi-scalar political will on the part of both government and NGOs over the long term; (2) proximate social pressure, i.e., person-to-person contact between rural inhabitants and toilets; (3) political ecology, i.e., assured access to water, compatible soil type, and changing land use. This research contributes to studies of sustainable development and global public health by developing a theory and framework for successful sanitation.
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Stigma actively prevents women and girls from developing healthy habits, such as using soap and water or using latrines.
“Stigma actively prevents women and girls from developing healthy habits (e.g., using soap and water or from using latrines (O'Reilly and Louis, 2014; Yeasmin et al., 2017;Winter et al., 2019).”
From A Systematic Review of Water and Gender Interlinkages: Assessing the Intersection With Health (2020) · cites this paper as O'Reilly and Louis, 2014
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- Authors
- O’Reilly, K., & Louis, E.
- Affiliations
- Texas A&M University (US)
- Corresponding author
- O’Reilly, Kathleen
- ORCID
- O’Reilly, Kathleen
- Venue
- Health & Place
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2014-09
- Volume
- 29
- Pages
- 43-51
- ISSN
- 1353-8292 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2155240383
- Cited by
- 170
- References
- 36
- Citations by year
- 2026: 9 · 2025: 6 · 2024: 6 · 2023: 19 · 2022: 14 · 2021: 19 · 2020: 18 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 16 · 2017: 23 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 13 · 2014: 2
- FWCI
- 15.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Health & Place (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Nursing › Nutrition and Dietetics › Child Nutrition and Water Access
- Social Sciences › Gender Studies › Gender Studies and Social Issues
- Social Sciences › Political Science and International Relations › Water Governance and Infrastructure
- Keywords
- sanitation, rural India, political ecology, social pressure, water access, soil type, land use change, non-governmental organizations, sustainable development, West Bengal, Himachal Pradesh
- MeSH terms
- Attitude to Health, Conservation of Natural Resources, Habits, Humans, India, Public Health, Residence Characteristics, Rural Population, Sanitation, Socioeconomic Factors, Toilet Facilities
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