Geography matters for sanitation! Spatial heterogeneity of the district‐level correlates of open defecation in India

• DOI: 10.1111/sjtg.12402
• Publication Date: 2021-11-26T10:59:04Z
• Authors: Saurav Chakraborty; Josef Novotný; Jadab Das; Aditi Bardhan; Srijanee Roy; Swikriti Mondal; Priyank Pravin Patel; Sneha Santra; Indranil Maity; Rimi Biswas; Aparajita Maji; Suvamoy Pramanik
• Keywords: Open defecation; Spatial heterogeneity; Externality

This paper quantitatively analyzes the spatial heterogeneity of district‐level correlates open defecation in rural India. We employ standard non‐spatial regression, spatially explicit regressions and multi‐scale geographically weighted regression to compare stability measurable across these different methods as well analyzed units. Attributes like ownership household assets, drinking water inaccessibility prevalent literacy rates were identified most stable defecation. Our results also demonstrated relevance our hypotheses about (a) possible negative sanitation externalities stemming from co‐concentration Scheduled Caste communities other densely populated districts, (b) positive Muslim non‐Muslim districts. Overall, however, analyses demonstrate notable clustering significant non‐stationarity examined variables. Therefore, opinion, research findings that ignore drivers provide incomplete information for policy development implementation.