Clinical trial NCT01824940: SHINE Sanitation, Hygiene, Infant Nutrition Efficacy Project
Official title: Sanitation, Hygiene, Infant Nutrition Efficacy Project
Study type: INTERVENTIONAL
Overall status: COMPLETED
Phase: NA
Conditions: Growth; Stunting, Nutritional
Anemia
Keywords: Cluster randomized trial
Nutrition
Water Sanitation Hygiene
Environmental enteropathy
Lead sponsor: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
Sponsor class: OTHER
Collaborators: name: Ministry of Health and Child Welfare, Zimbabwe
name: Zvitambo
name: Cornell University
name: University of London
name: Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
name: Department for International Development, United Kingdom
name: Wellcome Trust
name: Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD)
First posted: 2013-04-05
Enrollment: 5280
Sex: FEMALE
Minimum age (years): 15
Maximum age (years): 49
Standard ages: CHILD
ADULT
Accepts healthy volunteers: no
Allocation: RANDOMIZED
Intervention model: FACTORIAL
Primary purpose: PREVENTION

Brief summary: Globally, stunting affects 26% (165 million) of under-5-year children, underlies 15-17% of their mortality and leads to long-term cognitive deficits, fewer years and poorer performance in school, lower adult economic productivity, and a higher risk that their own children will also be stunted, perpetuating the problem into future generations. Stunting begins antenatally and peaks at 18-24 months of postnatal life, when mean length-for-age Z-score (LAZ) is about -2.0 among children living in Africa and Asia. Improving the diets of young children can reduce stunting, though, at best, only by about one-third. Frequent diarrheal illness has also been implicated. However, the effect of diarrhea on permanent stunting is relatively small, maybe because children grow at "catch-up" rates between illness episodes.

The Sanitation Hygiene Infant Nutrition Efficacy (SHINE) trial is motivated by a 2-part premise:

* A major cause of child stunting and anemia is Environmental Enteric Dysfunction (EED). EED is a subclinical disorder of the small intestine, which is virtually ubiquitous among asymptomatic people living in low-income settings throughout the world. EED is characterized by increased permeability which facilitates microbial translocation into the systemic circulation and triggers chronic immune activation.
* The primary cause of EED is infant ingestion of fecal microbes due to living in conditions of poor quality and quantity of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH).

Detailed description: The Sanitation Hygiene Infant Nutrition Efficacy ("SHINE") trial will test the effects of two packages of interventions: 1) improved water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) and 2) improved infant and young child feeding (IYCF) on child stunting and anemia in the first 18 months of life. The trial will be conducted in rural Zimbabwe where WASH is poor, food insecurity high, and where about 15% of pregnant women are infected with HIV. The study will enroll 5282 women early in pregnancy and follow them and their infants until 18 months after delivery. The study will be a cluster-randomized controlled trial: two entire districts in central Zimbabwe have been divided into 212 geographic areas, each of about 100 households. The areas will be randomly allocated (that is, assigned by according to chance like the flip of a coin) to one of four interventions:

1. Improved WASH (a ventilated pit latrine, hand washing facilities with soap, drinking water treatment, a protected play space and health lessons to adopt improved hygiene behaviors)
2. Improved Infant Nutrition (health lessons on best infant feeding practices and a nutritional supplement (Nutributter) to be fed daily to babies from 6 to 18 months).
3. Improved WASH and Infant Nutrition (both interventions)
4. Standard of Care

All women living in the two districts who become pregnant during the recruitment period of the study will be invited to enroll. They will receive one of the 4 packages of interventions according to the area where they live. Health lessons will be given by Village Health Workers. Latrines and hand washing facilities will be constructed by building teams. Mothers will be followed up by research nurses at 7 months gestation, and at 1, 3, 6, 12, and 18 months after delivery. Primary outcomes are infant height and hemoglobin at 18 months of age.

Within SHINE we will measure two causal pathways: the biomedical pathway and the program impact pathway.

The biomedical pathway comprises the infant biologic responses to the WASH and IYCF interventions that ultimately result in attained stature and hemoglobin concentration at 18 months of age; it will be elucidated by measuring biomarkers of intestinal structure and function (inflammation, regeneration, absorption and permeability); microbial translocation; systemic inflammation; and hormonal determinants of growth and anemia among a subgroup of infants enrolled in an EED substudy. The investigators will also ask these mothers to record daily any episodes of diarrhea; blood/mucus in the stool; cough; fast or difficult breathing; fever; and lethargy preventing breastfeeding, that the child has between 1 month and 18 months of age. A subgroup of infants will also have stool samples collected during diarrhoeal episodes to evaluate reductions in pathogen-specific diarrhoea following WASH interventions.

Since the mothers enrolled in SHINE will have lived in unsanitary living conditions throughout their lives, it is anticipated that most will have some degree of EED themselves. It is hypothesized that resulting chronic inflammation contributes to adverse birth outcomes, such as prematurity and low birth weight. This question will be investigated through an observational design. For all mothers enrolled in SHINE, the sugar absorption test described above will be conducted and specimens of saliva, stool and blood collected and archived at the 10-12 week gestation visit for subsequent assessment of EED biomarkers. The association of severity of EED with risk of adverse birth outcomes (low birth length and weight; miscarriage, stillbirth, and premature delivery) will be assessed.

The program impact pathway comprises the series of processes and behaviors linking implementation of the interventions with the two child health outcomes; it will be modeled using measures of fidelity of intervention delivery and household uptake of promoted behaviors and practices. We will also measure a range of household and individual characteristics, social interactions, and maternal capabilities for childcare, which we hypothesize will explain heterogeneity along these pathways.

Eligibility criteria: Study participants will be women who are rural residents of Chirumanzu or Shurugwi districts in Zimbabwe and who become pregnant during the enrollment period of the trial and are identified and consent to participation during pregnancy, and their live born infants. A total of 5280 women will be enrolled.

Inclusion Criteria:

Pregnant women residing in the study districts, whose pregnancy is confirmed by a urine pregnancy test.

Exclusion Criteria:

* Women residing in the study districts who become pregnant during the enrollment period but do not consent to join the trial
* Women who reside in urban areas of these two districts
* Infants with major non-fatal abnormalities will not be excluded from study procedures, but will be excluded from the final analytic sample if the abnormality is likely to directly affect gut health/function or stature (e.g. neural tube defects, cerebral palsy, Down syndrome)

Primary outcomes:
measure: Infant length at 18 months
timeFrame: 18 months of age. Protocol and Statistical Analysis Plan are available at https://osf.io/w93hy.
measure: Infant hemoglobin at 18 months
timeFrame: 18 months
Secondary outcomes:
measure: Infant environmental enteric dysfunction
timeFrame: 1, 3, 6, 12 and 18 months of age
measure: Infant weight, mid-upper arm circumference and head circumference
timeFrame: At 18 months, and (with length) at intermediate time-points of 1, 3, 6 and 12 months
measure: To describe the Program Impact Pathways (PIP) linking implementation of each randomized intervention (WASH and IYCF) with length and hemoglobin concentrations
timeFrame: Throughout follow-up
measure: Exclusive breastfeeding
timeFrame: First 6 months of life
measure: To evaluate the effect of the IYCF intervention on uptake of improved infant feeding practices by maternal/infant HIV status
timeFrame: 6-18 months of age
measure: To evaluate the effect of the WASH intervention on the 5 key behaviors it promotes by maternal/infant HIV status
timeFrame: Throughout follow-up
measure: Relative contributions of diarrhea vs EED
timeFrame: Birth to 18 months
measure: To measure the strength of association between other potential causes of stunting and anemia (other than poor WASH or IYCF) with linear growth and hemoglobin
timeFrame: Throughout follow-up
measure: Infant diarrhea prevalence, incidence and severity
timeFrame: 1 month to 18 months of age
measure: Child neurodevelopment
timeFrame: 24 months of age
measure: Prevalence of mycotoxin exposure among mothers and infants
timeFrame: Maternal samples assessed at baseline; infant samples assessed birth to 18 months
measure: MAternal and infant microbiota
timeFrame: Maternal samples from baseline and 1 month postpartum; infant samples birth to 18 months of age
measure: Infant rotavirus vaccine and polio vaccine immunogenicity
timeFrame: 1 and 3 months of age
measure: Adverse birth outcomes: miscarriage, still birth, small for gestational age, preterm delivery, neonatal death
timeFrame: Maternal pregnancy exposures, infant outcomes through 1 month postpartum
measure: Bioimpedance analysis, skinfold thicknesses and leg length measurement
timeFrame: 24 months in a subsample of infants
measure: Observational study of WASH and non-WASH infants
timeFrame: About 14 months of age
measure: Assess metabolic pathways of pathogenesis of stunting
timeFrame: 12 month urines; longitudinal stools from 150 mother-infant pairs from 32 week gestation, and 1,3,6,12,and 18 months postpartum
measure: Friendship Bench for treatment of depression: a pilot study
timeFrame: August 2018 - January 2019 (about a year after the end of the trial).
Other outcomes:
Locations:
city: Harare
country: Zimbabwe
facility: Zvitambo
Study officials:
affiliation: Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health
name: Jean H Humphrey, ScD
role: PRINCIPAL_INVESTIGATOR
References:
citation: Humphrey JH. Child undernutrition, tropical enteropathy, toilets, and handwashing. Lancet. 2009 Sep 19;374(9694):1032-1035. doi: 10.1016/S0140-6736(09)60950-8. No abstract available.
citation: Prendergast AJ, Rukobo S, Chasekwa B, Mutasa K, Ntozini R, Mbuya MN, Jones A, Moulton LH, Stoltzfus RJ, Humphrey JH. Stunting is characterized by chronic inflammation in Zimbabwean infants. PLoS One. 2014 Feb 18;9(2):e86928. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0086928. eCollection 2014.
citation: Paul KH, Muti M, Chasekwa B, Mbuya MN, Madzima RC, Humphrey JH, Stoltzfus RJ. Complementary feeding messages that target cultural barriers enhance both the use of lipid-based nutrient supplements and underlying feeding practices to improve infant diets in rural Zimbabwe. Matern Child Nutr. 2012 Apr;8(2):225-38. doi: 10.1111/j.1740-8709.2010.00265.x. Epub 2010 Aug 4.
citation: Mbuya MN, Humphrey JH, Majo F, Chasekwa B, Jenkins A, Israel-Ballard K, Muti M, Paul KH, Madzima RC, Moulton LH, Stoltzfus RJ. Heat treatment of expressed breast milk is a feasible option for feeding HIV-exposed, uninfected children after 6 months of age in rural Zimbabwe. J Nutr. 2010 Aug;140(8):1481-8. doi: 10.3945/jn.110.122457. Epub 2010 Jun 23.
citation: Ngure FM, Humphrey JH, Mbuya MN, Majo F, Mutasa K, Govha M, Mazarura E, Chasekwa B, Prendergast AJ, Curtis V, Boor KJ, Stoltzfus RJ. Formative research on hygiene behaviors and geophagy among infants and young children and implications of exposure to fecal bacteria. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2013 Oct;89(4):709-16. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.12-0568. Epub 2013 Sep 3.
citation: Mupfudze TG, Stoltzfus RJ, Rukobo S, Moulton LH, Humphrey JH, Prendergast AJ; SHINE Project Team. Hepcidin decreases over the first year of life in healthy African infants. Br J Haematol. 2014 Jan;164(1):150-3. doi: 10.1111/bjh.12567. Epub 2013 Sep 20. No abstract available.
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citation: Desai A, Mbuya MN, Chigumira A, Chasekwa B, Humphrey JH, Moulton LH, Pelto G, Gerema G, Stoltzfus RJ; SHINE Study Team. Traditional oral remedies and perceived breast milk insufficiency are major barriers to exclusive breastfeeding in rural Zimbabwe. J Nutr. 2014 Jul;144(7):1113-9. doi: 10.3945/jn.113.188714. Epub 2014 May 14.
citation: Jones AD, Rukobo S, Chasekwa B, Mutasa K, Ntozini R, Mbuya MN, Stoltzfus RJ, Humphrey JH, Prendergast AJ. Acute illness is associated with suppression of the growth hormone axis in Zimbabwean infants. Am J Trop Med Hyg. 2015 Feb;92(2):463-70. doi: 10.4269/ajtmh.14-0448. Epub 2014 Dec 22.
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citation: Gough EK, Stephens DA, Moodie EE, Prendergast AJ, Stoltzfus RJ, Humphrey JH, Manges AR. Linear growth faltering in infants is associated with Acidaminococcus sp. and community-level changes in the gut microbiota. Microbiome. 2015 Jun 13;3:24. doi: 10.1186/s40168-015-0089-2. eCollection 2015.
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