An additional very recent review article collecting evidence is: "Impact of drinking water, sanitation and handwashing with soap on childhood diarrhoeal disease: updated meta-analysis and meta-regression" . Brought to our attention by Forum writer Mughal.

This paper reviews some 135 studies (after sifting through some 12,000 documents) between 1970 to 2016. The results were analysed using meta-regressions.

On sanitation: Interventions reaching high sanitation coverage, that is above 75%, in the community were associated with a diarrhoea risk reduction of 45%. Also, sewer connections were associated with larger diarrhoea risk reduction than improved household sanitation (40% vs. 16%). In both water and sanitation analyses, diarrhoea morbidity is reduced further when the intervention is combined with other components of WaSH.

Conclusion: "Although evidence is limited, results suggest that household connections of water supply and higher levels of community coverage for sanitation appear particularly impactful which is in line with targets of the Sustainable Development Goals."

The paper is attached.

Regards,

Arno

Note by moderator: Website link for this article: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tmi.13051
This article is the updated review of doi: 10.1111/tmi.12331 (onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/tmi.12331) - which came out in May 2014 with the title "Systematic review: Assessing the impact of drinking water and sanitation on diarrhoeal disease in low‐ and middle‐income settings: systematic review and meta‐regression"