Biosand filter reduces diarrheal disease

There are many areas in the US where this technique developed at UNC Chapel Hill might work. A simple, affordable household filtration device can reduce the incidence of diarrhea, one of the leading causes of disease and death in developing countries, by up to 40 percent, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill have shown. “This technology has the potential to bring safe drinking water to many people in developing countries around the world who don’t have access to it now,” said Mark Sobsey, Ph.D., professor of environmental sciences and engineering at UNC’s School of Public Health. “These kinds of filters have been used in the developing world since the 1990s, but there was only anecdotal evidence that they actually improved health,” said Christine Stauber, a UNC doctoral candidate who helped direct the project in the Dominican Republic. “It was really exciting to collect scientific evidence in an objective study that showed the filters actually worked, at least in these communities.”