Research Area: Food Safety, Water & Sanitation
Information Is Key to Ending Open Defecation
This policy brief presents the results of a study of the impact of toilet subsidies and behavior change communications on the practice of open defecation in rural India. TCI researchers conducted a cluster randomized trial of villages in Uttar Pradesh, providing one group of villages...
Addressing Information and Credit Barriers to Making India Open Defecation Free and Improving Child Health: Evidence from a Cluster Randomized Trial in Rural India
Abstract Read a policy brief based on this study. Background Open defecation (OD) remains a significant public health challenge in India, contributing to adverse child health outcomes. Eliminating OD and improving child health necessitates both universal access and adoption of toilets. Despite the success of...
Participatory Mycotoxin Management in India and the Genetic Determinants of Symptom Manifestation in the Sorghum Grain Mold Disease Complex
Abstract Mycotoxin contamination is an important constraint to food security and public health in a range of food systems. Dietary exposure to mycotoxins is associated with health and nutrition adversities in humans and livestock. Surveillance systems and management strategies are rarely attentive to the...
Whitman Barrett
Whitman Barrett received his MS in soil and crop sciences in 2024. His work focused on the reuse of human excreta in agriculture, with the goal of improving smallholder farmers’ productivity and resilience to climate change. He is passionate about…
Addressing Mycotoxin Exposure across Village Food Systems in Rural India
TCI-TARINA Policy Brief No. 10, October 2017
Food Safety in India: Status and Challenges
TCI-TARINA Policy Brief No. 5, May 2017
Farmer Research Networks Enable Community-Based Mycotoxin Management in Rural Indian Villages
Abstract CONTEXT Mycotoxins and other food safety and preservation challenges are prevalent in smallholder food systems, and communities often lack the knowledge and capacity required to effectively diagnose and address these concerns. Participatory research can facilitate innovation in resource-poor settings by fostering collective identity and...
Essays on the Time Use and Behavioral Patterns of Women’s Access to Household Water in Rural India
Abstract In this dissertation, three independent research papers are joined together by the common research theme of ‘Women’s access to household water’ in India. The first two papers are based on the self-collected data from selected villages of Jharkhand, India. In these papers, I am...
Mycotoxin Surveillance for Low-Resource Settings
Abstract Mycotoxins are secondary metabolites produced by fungi in a wide range of foods (cereals, peanut, tree nuts, dried fruits, coffee, cocoa, grapes, spices…) both in the field and after harvest, particularly during storage. They can also be found in processed foods of plant origin,...
Pandemics and food systems – towards a proactive food safety approach to disease prevention & management
Abstract Recent large-scale pandemics such as the covid19, H1N1, Swine flu, Ebola and the Nipah virus, which impacted human health and livelihoods, have come about due to inadequate food systems safeguards to detect, trace and eliminate threats arising from zoonotic diseases. Such diseases are transmitted...