Something to Squawk About: Focus on Household Poultry to Improve Food Safety
Consuming contaminated food deprives children of critical, nutritive gains essential for their health and growth. Good food hygiene prevents fecal contamination of food and guards against diarrheal disease and other nutrition-robbing ailments. Washing hands before preparing food, avoiding cross-contamination, thorough cooking and removing fecal contamination from hands and surfaces are critical to prevent the foodborne spread of disease. And human feces isn’t the only concern — preventing exposure to animal feces is important, too!
Animal feces are emerging as an underestimated source of intestinal pathogens impacting health and growth, causing widespread contamination of the household environment. In rural India, markers of animal fecal contamination were found in 50% of stored water and 90% of hand rinse samples, indicating widespread risks of exposure to animal feces. Widespread housing of poultry and livestock indoors can lead to extensive environmental contamination that, in turn, may have negative impacts on child health (Ercumen et al. 2017, Ercumen 2018a, Ercumen 2018b).
Infant-Specific Pathways of Exposure Require More than Traditional Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH) Solutions
Infants and young children explore their world through touch and taste, resulting in ingestion of a multitude of environmental contaminants. In the process, they are putting objects (such as their hands or toys) that have been contaminated with animal feces into their mouths. Moreover, they occasionally directly ingest soil or put animal feces in their mouths (Kwong et al. 2021, Ngure et al. 2014). When implementing interventions that introduce, expand or intensify livestock husbandry or small-scale poultry production, the potential impacts of increasing the quantity of animal feces in the environment on children’s health should be taken into consideration.
Promises and Pitfalls of Small-Scale Poultry Production
Small-scale poultry production offers many benefits, with the overall impact varying across households and contexts. Households often keep poultry as a form of nutrition, dietary diversity, food security, income and/or savings. Raising backyard poultry contributes to the nutritional and economic status of people around the world, with women often benefitting disproportionately. Household poultry production can also impact children’s health and well-being. Depending on contextual factors, such as where the poultry are housed, studies have found that domestic poultry can improve childhood nutrition and dietary diversity, but also expose children to pathogens that can cause diarrhea, stunting and death.
Pathogens Found in Animals Cause Illness in Children
While small-scale poultry production offers many benefits, it is important to also consider and address the negative impacts it can pose to human and environmental health. Research suggests animal husbandry and animal feces management influence child health through hygienic environment and food safety pathways. In a recent systematic review, a large majority of studies found an association between exposure to poultry or livestock and diarrheal illness in households. Similar research has found relationships between the presence of animal feces in the home and poor nutrition and child health outcomes.
Separating Infants and Young Children from Poultry and Animal Feces
The first USAID Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Partnerships and Learning for Sustainability (WASHPaLS) Project (2016-2022) explored options for reducing infant exposure to animal feces. The interventions included improved flooring, infant playpens and cooping animals during the day and/or night. A synthesis study found that the interventions were feasible and appealing to beneficiaries (with the exception of daytime poultry cooping, which was not possible for free-range feeding). Creating an enabling environment, such as by introducing chicken coops and improved flooring for purchase, increases the likelihood of households adopting hygienic behaviors. However, these pilot interventions were not large enough to test if they positively impacted child health outcomes. More studies are needed to fully examine the long-term impacts and sustainability of interventions, especially as they are implemented across differing sociocultural and geographic contexts.
Next Steps for an Integrated Research Agenda
Previous research conducted under USAID WASHPaLS suggest that a set of context-specific, multisectoral, gender-sensitive approaches offer opportunities to substantially reduce children’s exposure to fecal contamination. This body of research is still developing, but several programmatic recommendations have emerged:
- Animals should be kept outside the home through construction and use outdoor, nighttime poultry coops.
- Caregivers should wash hands with soap after contact with infant feces, animals and their feces, especially before preparing food or feeding children.
- Caregivers should prevent children from directly ingesting soil or feces and putting unwashed hands and visibly dirty objects in their mouths.
- The house and courtyard should be kept free of visible feces through sweeping and monitoring.
- Infants and young children should be kept off bare soil.
Call to Action/Call for Partners
Through collaboration with implementing partners and, later, through small grants, USAID’s second WASHPaLS builds on the implementation research of the original WASHPaLS project to explore the vital connections between hygienic environments, poultry management, food safety and infant, youth and children’s health. This research will explore the combined impacts of implementing layered interventions within a program, and to examine the degree to which interventions can be carried out with fidelity and brought to scale. Shedding light on these pathways can help establish best practices for programming across sectors, including WASH, agriculture, nutrition and livelihoods.
The second WASHPaLS team is currently seeking implementation partners to conduct this research around existing USAID interventions. Please reach out to the second WASHPaLS Contracting Officer’s Representative, Jesse Shapiro, at [email protected] if your organization is interested in exploring partnership opportunities.