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After nearly 28 years, The Communication Initiative (The CI) Global is entering a new chapter. 

Following a period of transition, the global website has been transferred to the University of the Witwatersrand (Wits) in South Africa, where it will be administered by the Social and Behaviour Change Communication Division. Wits' commitment to social change and justice makes it a trusted steward for The CI's legacy and future. 

On the transfer, co-founder Victoria Martin expressed her pleasure to see this work continue under Wits' leadership, knowing that co-founder Warren Feek (1953–2024) would have felt deep pride in The CI Global's Africa-led direction. 

As Wits, we honour the team and partners who sustained The CI for decades and look forward building from that strong base. This includes co-founders Warren Feek (1953-2024) and Victoria Martin as well as La Iniciativa de Comunicación (CILA), which continues independently at lainiciativadecomunicacion.com with links to The CI Global site. We are also eager to forge new partnerships and entertain new ideas as we consider how best to contribute to social and behaviour change in our rapidly evolving environment.

If you are joining the International Social and Behaviour Change Communication (SBCC) Summit in Panama, please join Wits and CILA on Monday, 22 June, to share your thoughts and suggestion for the relaunch of the Communication Initiative. We will be in Pacifica 5 from 12-1:25 for the Refuel, Reflect, and Renew Lunch Series: The Communication Initiative: celebrating a driving force for Communication for Social Change and the way forward. We will reflect on the legacy of Warren Feek and family in creating the Communication Initiative, consider the contributions of CI over the years and then turn our attention towards the future in this dynamic session. 

If you are unable to join us in Panama, we still want to hear from you. Please contribute your thoughts by following this link: https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026 or reaching out to ci_surveys@commint.com. 

You can also follow the QR Code:

 https://redcap.link/CommunicationInitiative2026

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The effect of handwashing at recommended times with water alone and with soap on child diarrhea in rural Bangladesh: An observational study

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Luby, S.P.,  Halder, A.,  Huda, T., Unicomb, L., & Johnston, R. (2011). The effect of handwashing at recommended times with water alone and with soap on child diarrhea in rural Bangladesh: An observational study. PLOS Medicine, 8(6), e1001052.

ABSTRACT

Background:

Standard public health interventions to improve hand hygiene in communities with high levels of child mortality encourage community residents to wash their hands with soap at five separate key times, a recommendation that would require mothers living in impoverished households to typically wash hands with soap more than ten times per day. We analyzed data from households that received no intervention in a large prospective project evaluation to assess the relationship between observed handwashing behavior and subsequent diarrhea.

Methods and Findings:

Fieldworkers conducted a 5-hour structured observation and a cross-sectional survey in 347 households from 50 villages across rural Bangladesh in 2007. For the subsequent 2 years, a trained community resident visited each of the enrolled households every month and collected information on the occurrence of diarrhea in the preceding 48 hours among household residents under the age of 5 years. Compared with children living in households where persons prepared food without washing their hands, children living in households where the food preparer washed at least one hand with water only (odds ratio [OR] = 0.78; 95% confidence interval [CI] = 0.57–1.05), washed both hands with water only (OR = 0.67; 95% CI = 0.51–0.89), or washed at least one hand with soap (OR = 0.30; 95% CI = 0.19–0.47) had less diarrhea. In households where residents washed at least one hand with soap after defecation, children had less diarrhea (OR = 0.45; 95% CI = 0.26–0.77). There was no significant association between handwashing with or without soap before feeding a child, before eating, or after cleaning a child's anus who defecated and subsequent child diarrhea.

Conclusions:

These observations suggest that handwashing before preparing food is a particularly important opportunity to prevent childhood diarrhea, and that handwashing with water alone can significantly reduce childhood diarrhea.