How to prevent a tenth of the global disease burden.

摘要

In the 19th century, two public health engineers discovered that the reduction in child mortality brought about by improvements in water and sanitation exceeded the number of deaths that could be attributed to diarrhoea alone—the Mills-Reincke phenomenon. Unfortunately, until very recently, the world has ignored this phenomenon. Now several key reports emphasise the dramatic health (and economic) benefits that can be gained from improvements in water, sanitation, and hygiene and give plenty of incentive for the political will that we called for in our Editorial on March 29.