Article Cite This: Environ. Sci. Technol. 2019, 53, 8271−8281
pubs.acs.org/est
Microbial Source Tracking Using 16S rRNA Amplicon Sequencing Identifies Evidence of Widespread Contamination from Young Children’s Feces in an Urban Slum of Nairobi, Kenya Valerie Bauza,† Vincent Madadi,‡ Robinson M. Ocharo,§ Thanh H. Nguyen,† and Jeremy S. Guest*,†
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Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Urbana, Illinois 61801, United States ‡ Department of Chemistry, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya § Department of Sociology and Social Work, University of Nairobi, Nairobi, 00100, Kenya S Supporting Information *
ABSTRACT: Child exposure to fecal contamination remains common in low- and middle-income countries after sanitation interventions. Unsafe disposal of children’s feces may contribute to this continued exposure, but its relative importance to domestic fecal contamination is not well understood. To address this gap, we interviewed and collected environmental samples (drinking water, caregiver hands, child hands, surfaces, soil, open drainage ditches, standing water, streams) from 40 households in Kibera, an urban slum in Nairobi, Kenya. To track young children’s feces (
