Cities without sewers

Hospitals across the United States are trying, in systematic ways, to reduce the risk of infection and other preventable dangers that can leave patients in worse shape after their stay. Some of the approaches include limiting entrances and exits during surgeries and administering antibiotics in a timely manner.

Billions of people around the world lack access to safe sanitation, causing disease and deaths. In Ecuador a foundation developed a cheap, dry, composting toilet for poor rural families.

An app that uses A.I. to scans lung X-rays is helping two hospitals in rural and remote parts of India to identify cases of tuberculosis that they otherwise would have been likely to misdiagnose. Medical professionals caution that the app is not a replacement for a clinician's diagnosis but say when used in conjunction with a clinical assessment, the interpretation of a chest X-ray is likely to be more accurate.

The South African Centre for Infectious Disease Surveillance is piloting a program to use smartphone technology to report and respond to infectious disease outbreaks. The program trains community members to recognize signs of infectious diseases, such as vomiting and diarrhea, and report them through their smartphones. These reports are relayed to a team of specialists who track the location and frequency of these reports to determine if an outbreak of disease is occurring and respond accordingly.

Uganda’s education ministry requires all schools to have incinerators to burn used sanitary pads. Lack of funding limits schools’ ability to comply. Even when incinerators exist, girls don’t necessarily use them. Educating both girls and boys about menstruation reduces stigma and increases the likelihood that girls feel comfortable enough to collect pads instead of throwing them in pit latrines.

The simple addition of adding handles to bathroom stalls in the Rohingya refugee camps in Bangladesh has helped the camps' pregnant women regain a sense of empowerment and dignity. Providing support and balance, the design of these latrines have benefited the elderly in the camps as well.

On World Toilet Day in 2014, the Kenyan government promised to build 180 public toilets in an ambitious move to combat the issue of public sanitation. The program went well once the keys were handed off to the National Youth Service of Kenya as a means of income, but issues quickly arose that could not be resolved because of a lack of further funds. The youth has since transformed their toilets into a rental space for local churches, such as Christ Miracle Church for All Nations in Laini Saba.

The coronavirus pandemic swept the nation at a time when many would be going to polling stations to cast their votes in primary elections, but vote-at-home practices are providing a solution for this civic inconvenience. Oregon, Washington, Colorado, and now Utah have all implemented statewide all-mail election campaigns that not only improve voter turnout, but also cost less to taxpayers than only relying on in-person polling booths.

The state of Pennsylvania set to plant 86,000 hectares of riparian buffers, the practice of planting trees and shrubs along a river or stream to filter water. Other benefits of riparian buffers include things like restoring the soil and cooling the water. In order to meet their goal, the state scientists used a bottom approach, enlisting the help of local farmers by offering them grants to plant trees and showing farmers how they can profit off of riparian buffers. While the state is behind its goal, the state is planting about 1,000 to 2,000 hectares a year.

Teams of Community Direct Distributors (CDD) are leading drug distribution campaigns to prevent and eliminate neglected tropical diseases in hard-to-reach, rural areas. These CDDs are members of the community they serve and are trained to educate the locals on disease prevention and administer the drugs themselves. With the CDDs’ help, several states have already eliminated some diseases and greatly reduced the spread of others.