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Hello E-conference participants. I am the M&E Specialist on the Hygiene Improvement Project.

As you suspect, I have M&E issues that I would want to bring up in this discussion.

In other hygiene areas such as hand washing, there are basically two schools of thought as far as behavior measurement is concerned. Since we do need to track the extent to which interventions change hygiene practices, the first school argues in favor of observed practices. As a result, structured observation is the gold standard. The second school assumes that self-reports are an option. There is probably a middle ground which would accept proxies such as presence of hand washing implements, location of implements with respect to contamination areas, knowledge about when to wash hands or attitudes and beliefs considered to be behavioral determinants. The proxies may include then factors that lead to practices and that research has shown has a direct relationship to practices.

The question about how to best measure household water treatment and storage practices is equally important. Different ways at getting a handle on practices are used. Measures include measures of behavioral determinants, observation of storage utensils, and measurement of chlorine residuals when chlorination is used for water treatment.

I ask the group what objective measures of water treatment are possible, which have been used, and how useful have they been? In addition, what should we do given the wide range of water treatment options? Can we incorporate such objective measures to household surveys?

If no cross water treatment method objective measure is possible, should we develop one? Should we develop one that can be incorporated to household surveys?