International journal of epidemiology
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Randomized Controlled Trial Multicenter Study
Improving household air, drinking water and hygiene in rural Peru: a community-randomized-controlled trial of an integrated environmental home-based intervention package to improve child health.
Diarrhoea and acute lower respiratory infections are leading causes of childhood morbidity and mortality, which can be prevented by simple low-cost interventions. Integrated strategies can provide additional benefits by addressing multiple health burdens simultaneously. ⋯ Combined home-based environmental interventions slightly reduced childhood diarrhoea, but the confidence interval included unity. Effects on growth and respiratory outcomes were not observed, despite high user compliance of the interventions. The absent effect on respiratory health might be due to insufficient household air quality improvements of the improved stoves and additional time needed to achieve attitudinal and behaviour change when providing composite interventions.