The Print (India) features a new research led by IFPRI’s Suman Chakrabarti and Soyra Gune, published in Nature this week, which analyzed infant & under-5 mortality data from 35 states, 640 districts.
‘Happy to see research highlighting impact of Swachh Bharat Mission,’ said PM Narendra Modi on X.
“The construction of toilets under the government’s “Swachh Bharat Mission” was a factor in averting around 60,000 to 70,000 infant deaths annually between 2011 and 2020, a new study published in the peer-reviewed journal Nature has found. (…)
Researchers from the International Food Policy Research Institute, University of California and Ohio State University conducted a quasi-experimental study to investigate the association between the “Swachh Bharat Mission (SBM)”—India’s national sanitation programme—and infant and under-five mortality rates in India.
They studied infant mortality and under-five mortality data from 35 states and 640 districts between 2011 and 2020.
An author of the paper, Soyra Gune, said most literature on reducing mortality in low and middle-income countries focused on preventative and curative interventions during the prenatal and postnatal period.
“However, scant evidence is available on the association between large-scale investments in sanitation and mortality in these countries,” said the research analyst at the International Food Policy Research Institute”.
The news was also covered by Hindustan Times, DailyHunt, Times Now, Newsroom Odisha, NewsTrailIndia.com, MENAFN, NewsX, The Hills Times, Down to Earth, and other outlets across India.