{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,9,18]],"date-time":"2026-09-18T22:12:49Z","timestamp":1789769569974,"version":"4.0.1"},"reference-count":49,"publisher":"Public Library of Science (PLoS)","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,21]],"date-time":"2022-07-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1658361600000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"http:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0\/"}],"funder":[{"name":"UK Department for International Development (DFID) through the Sanitation and Hygiene Research for Equity (SHARE) Programme and facilitated by Water- Aid Tanzania and UK"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["www.plosone.org"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["PLoS ONE"],"abstract":"<jats:p>Sub-Sahara African countries face immense challenges in ensuring adequate sanitation and hygiene behaviours to the rapidly growing populations. Attempts to address these challenges require empirical evidence to inform policy and planning. We contribute toward that goal by unveiling findings of formative research conducted in Babati, a rapidly growing town in Tanzania. We conducted a cross-sectional study involving 486 households, to unwind motives and barriers for individuals to invest in improved sanitation services and hygiene behaviour change. We used several methods including household survey, focus group discussions, behaviour observations and spot checks. The findings revealed that households derive their motivation to invest in improved sanitation and hygiene practices from comfort, raising social status, and the need for personal safety and privacy. Other motives include fear of penalties and fines and fear of disease outbreaks, whilst the barriers include, limited water availability and accessibility, environmental factors, property rights, cultural issues, financial constraints, and a person\u2019s attitude. Quantitative data were subjected to multivariate analysis to identify determinants of households to invest in sanitation and hygiene practices. The logistic regression analyses revealed that sources of water, property rights, and education level were the main determinants of households to invest in sanitation and hygiene facilities, while household income was the main determinant for households to invest in both construction of handwashing facility and water treatment. We argue that the initiative to promote sanitation and hygiene behaviour change in small towns should focus on promoting motivation factors and abating the determinant factors identified in this study.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1371\/journal.pone.0270688","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,21]],"date-time":"2022-07-21T17:54:02Z","timestamp":1658426042000},"page":"e0270688","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1371\/journal.pone.corrections_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":15,"title":["What influences individuals to invest in improved sanitation services and hygiene behaviours in a small town? A formative research study in Babati, Tanzania"],"prefix":"10.1371","volume":"17","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-1693-8098","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Gabriel","family":"Malima","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Hoyce","family":"Mshida","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Revocatus","family":"Machunda","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-9143-663X","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Francis","family":"Moyo","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Joseph","family":"Banzi","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Om Prasad","family":"Gautam","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Mbaye","family":"Mbeguere","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-0847-4596","authenticated-orcid":true,"given":"Kyla","family":"Smith","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Sandy","family":"Cairncross","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"given":"Karoli N.","family":"Njau","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"340","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"pone.0270688.ref001","author":"World Health Organization (WHO) and United Nations Children\u2019s Fund (UNICEF)","year":"2021"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref002","article-title":"Handwashing with soap, critical in the fight against coronavirus, is \u2018out of reach\u2019 for billions\u2013UNICEF","author":"UNICEF","year":"2020","journal-title":"Statement on preveting COVID-19 [Internet]."},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref003","article-title":"Understanding the Challenges of Improving Sanitation and Hygiene Outcomes in a Community Based Intervention: A Cross-Sectional Study in Rural Tanzania.","author":"KJ Kamara","year":"2017","journal-title":"International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref004","article-title":"Economic Impacts of Poor Sanitation in Africa","author":"Water and Sanitation Program","year":"2012","journal-title":"WSP: Tanzania loses TZS301 billion annually due to poor sanitation"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref005","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"290","DOI":"10.2166\/washdev.2018.072","article-title":"Scaling up rural sanitation in Tanzania: evidence from the National Sanitation Campaign","volume":"8","author":"A Mwakitalima","year":"2018","journal-title":"J Water, Sanit Hyg Dev"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref006","first-page":"1","article-title":"Access and utilization of water and sanitation facilities and their determinants among pastoralists in the rural areas of northern Tanzania","volume":"20","author":"EC Nyanza","year":"2018","journal-title":"Tanzan J Health Res"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref007","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"3267","DOI":"10.1021\/es903524m","article-title":"Hands, Water, and Health: Fecal Contamination in Tanzanian Communities with Improved, Non-Networked Water Supplies","volume":"44","author":"AJ Pickering","year":"2010","journal-title":"Environ Sci Technol"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref008","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"75","DOI":"10.2166\/washdev.2020.129","article-title":"An assessment of availability of handwashing facilities in households from four east african countries.","volume":"11","author":"P Kisaakye","year":"2021","journal-title":"J Water Sanit Hyg Dev"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref009","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"1","DOI":"10.1136\/bmjopen-2019-030947","article-title":"Factors perceived to facilitate or hinder handwashing among primary students: A qualitative assessment of the Mikono Safi intervention schools in NW Tanzania.","volume":"9","author":"E Okello","year":"2019","journal-title":"BMJ Open"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref010","author":"World Bank","year":"2018","journal-title":"Improving Water Supply and Sanitation Can Help Tanzania Achieve its Human Development Goals"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref011","volume-title":"Tanzania population and housing census","author":"National Bureau of Statistics","year":"2012"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref012","article-title":"Tanzania annual interecensal population growth rates","author":"NBS","year":"2012"},{"key":"pone.0270688.ref013","unstructured":"WaterAid. 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