Hygiene evaluation procedures : approaches and methods for assessing water- and sanitation-related hygiene practices

This handbook provides field personnel with practical guidelines for evaluating water- and sanitation-related hygiene practices. It was conceived as a field companion to "Actions speak: the study of hygiene behaviour in water and sanitation projects" (Boot and Cairncross, 1993). The handbook was developed with project staff in Eastern Africa (Kenya, Tanzania and Ethiopia), India and Afghanistan. It describes methods of gathering, reviewing and interpreting qualitative information, by using a variety of sources and methods to produce effective, reliable and trustworthy data. After a short introduction, guidelines are provided on how to plan and design a hygiene evaluation study, including how to train a study team. This is followed by descriptions and an appraisal (strengths and limitations) of tools, both participatory and conventional, which can be used to investigate the context and to investigate hygiene practices. The first group of tools listed are: healthwalk, structured observations, key-informant interviewing, historyline, community mapping, seasonal calendar, gender roles/task analysis. These tools were appraised on the basis of experiences in the five countries mentioned above. The tools listed for investigating hygiene practices are: three-pile sorting, pocket chart, semi-structured (informal) interviews, and focus group discussion. The handbook concludes with some general guidelines on the analysis, presentation and implementation of findings.