A pre-post pilot study with and without subsidy to promote improved backyard poultry-raising practices to reduce exposure to poultry and poultry feces in rural Bangladesh.

Authors

Laura H Kwong, Jesmin Sultana, Elizabeth D Thomas, Mohammad Rofi Uddin, Shifat Khan, Jennifer Ching, Mahfuza Islam, Aminul Islam, Ireen Sultana Shanta, Nadia Ali Rimi, Mahbubur Rahman, Peter J Winch, Tarique Md Nurul Huda

Published in

PLOS global public health. Volume 6. Issue 7. Pages e0004512. Epub Jul 21, 2026.

Abstract

Backyard poultry raising is common in rural Bangladesh and many households keep their poultry inside their houses at night. Compared to keeping poultry outside in sheds at night, this practice likely elevates children's exposure to poultry and poultry feces and associated enteric pathogens. We conducted a two-arm (subsidy and non-subsidy) pre-post pilot study. Households in both arms received the behavior change communication and counseling intervention. Households in the subsidy arm also received ~23 USD for the construction of an improved poultry shed for nighttime housing. We administered a household survey and spot-check at baseline (February 2020) and then after intervention implementation (January-February 2021) among 37 subsidy and 42 non-subsidy households to determine the impact of the intervention on 1) confining poultry in a shed outside of the house at night, 2) poultry feces management, and 3) hand washing with soap after contacting poultry and poultry feces. A secondary aim was to investigate the effectiveness of a monetary subsidy on encouraging poultry raisers to build an improved poultry night shed. At endline, 58% of all households had an improved poultry shed (87% of subsidy and 33% of non-subsidy households). The percentage of all households confining all of their poultry outside the house the previous night was significantly higher at endline (33%) compared to baseline (2.5%) (prevalence difference: 30 percentage points [pp]; 95% confidence interval: [19, 41]). More households (both arms) had no visible poultry feces piles inside the house compared to baseline (prevalence difference: 26pp [10, 41]). Our intervention effectively encouraged households to build poultry sheds, confine poultry outside of house at night, and maintain an indoor living space free of poultry feces. Future studies should assess if housing all poultry outside the house reduces children's exposure to poultry feces enough to mitigate health risks associated with poultry ownership.

PMID:
42479726
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 22 Jul 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.