HYGIENE PRACTICES AND DISEASE PREVENTION AMONG STREET CHILDREN

Street children in Delhi experience heightened exposure to infectious disease risks due toconstrained access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), unstable living conditions, andlimited protection systems. This dissertation examines hygiene practices and disease preventionamong street children in Delhi through a theory-led, secondary-data mixed-methods approach.Drawing on the World Health Organization’s Social Determinants of Health framework andstructural violence perspectives, the study conceptualises poor hygiene outcomes as produced byintersecting deprivations—material scarcity, service exclusion, stigma, and weak institutionalreach—rather than individual “behavioural failure” (WHO, 2008; Farmer, 2006). Evidence issynthesised from Delhi- and India-specific sources including a rapid assessment estimating~60,431 street children in Delhi and describing where children are concentrated across cityspaces (Kailash Satyarthi Children’s Foundation, 2021), alongside national and Delhi WASHcontext indicators from NFHS-5 (IIPS & ICF, 2021). Findings indicate that hygiene practices arestrongly shaped by the micro-ecology of street life (markets, transport nodes, traffic signals), thereliability and safety of public sanitation, and the feasibility of routine preventive behaviourssuch as handwashing with soap. The dissertation concludes that effective disease preventionrequires a shift from awareness-only interventions to integrated, place-based WASH access, childprotection outreach, and low-threshold health services (UNICEF, 2023/2024). Policyrecommendations focus on service design at high-footfall child locations, hygiene-enablinginfrastructure, and strengthened drop-in centre linkages to healthcare and social protection.