This Research Brief summarises “Revealed preference for open defecation: Evidence from a new survey in rural north India,” a research paper by Diane Coffey, Aashish Gupta, Payal Hathi, Nidhi Khurana, Dean Spears, Nikhil Srivastav, and Sangita Vyas. The SQUAT survey was a survey of Sanitation Quality, Use, Access and Trends in rural north India.
From December 2013 to April 2014 over 3,200 rural households were asked about their sanitation behaviour and beliefs. Over 300 villages in 13 districts of Bihar, Haryana, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, and Uttar Pradesh. These states are home to 40% of the population of India, to 45% of households in India without a toilet or latrine, and to at least 30% of all people worldwide who defecate in the open. These households were visited by the researchers and data was collected on the defecation behaviour of 22,787 people.
