The USAID Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Partnerships and Learning for Sustainability (WASHPaLS) project conducted a review of the scientific and grey literature, complemented by dozens of key informant interviews with researchers and field implementers, to synthesize the latest understanding of key pathways of fecal microbe ingestion by IYC and their links to diarrhea, EED, and poor nutrition and development outcomes.
Specifically, the review sought to:

Sanitation aims to sequester human feces and prevent exposure to fecal pathogens. More than 2.4 billion people worldwide lack access to improved sanitation facilities and almost one billion practice open defecation. This study by Freeman et al undertook systematic reviews and meta-analyses to compile the most recent evidence on the impact of sanitation on diarrhea, soil-transmitted helminth (STH) infections, trachoma, schistosomiasis, and nutritional status assessed using anthropometry.

Child height is an important indicator of human capital and human development, in large part because early life health and net nutrition shape both child height and adult economic productivity and health. Between 2005 and 2010, the average height of children under 5 in Cambodia significantly increased. What contributed to this improvement? Recent evidence suggests that exposure to poor sanitation - and specifically to widespread open defecation - can pose a critical threat to child growth. We closely analyze the sanitation height gradient in Cambodia in these two years.