Contact

  • Academic
    cjpu@stanford.edu
    University - Student Department: Civil and Environmental Engineering Position: Graduate

Additional Info

  • Mail Code: 4020

All Publications

  • How poverty is measured impacts who gets classified as impoverished. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America Pu, C. J., Lambin, E. F., Kusimakwe, I., Gichia, L., Seme, A., Otupiri, E., Davis, J. 2024; 121 (7): e2316730121

    Abstract

    We test whether the classification of households into poverty categories is meaningfully influenced by the poverty measurement approach that is employed. These classification techniques are widely used by governments, non-profit organizations, and development agencies for policy design and implementation. Using primary data collected in Ethiopia, Ghana, and Uganda, we find almost no agreement in how four commonly used approaches rank 16,150 households in terms of poverty status. This result holds for each country, for urban and rural households, and across the entire socio-economic distribution. Households' poverty rankings differ by an entire quartile on average. Conclusions about progress toward poverty alleviation goals may depend in large part on how poverty is measured.

    View details for DOI 10.1073/pnas.2316730121

    View details for PubMedID 38315862

  • Necessary conditions for sustainable water and sanitation service delivery in schools: A systematic review. PloS one Pu, C. J., Patel, P., Hornsby, G., Darmstadt, G. L., Davis, J. 2022; 17 (7): e0270847

    Abstract

    Access to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services confers significant health and economic benefits, especially for children, but only if those services can be delivered on a consistent basis. The challenge of sustainable, school-based WASH service delivery has been widely documented, particularly in resource-constrained contexts. We conducted a systematic review of published research that identifies drivers of, or tests solutions to, this challenge within low- and middle-income countries (PROSPERO 2020 CRD42020199163). Authors in the first group employ cross-sectional research designs and interrogate previously implemented school WASH interventions. Most conclude that dysfunctional accountability and information sharing mechanisms drive school WASH service delivery failures. By contrast, most of the interventions developed and tested experimentally by authors in the second group focus on increasing the financial and material resources available to schools for WASH service delivery. Overall, these authors find negligible impact of such infusions of cash, infrastructure, and supplies across a variety of sustainability outcome metrics. Taken together, the evidence suggests that sustainable service delivery depends on three simultaneously necessary components: resources, information, and accountability. Drawing upon theory and evidence from social psychology, public management, and political science, we identify priority knowledge gaps that can meaningfully improve the design of effective interventions. We also highlight the importance of both interdisciplinary collaboration and local expertise in designing WASH programming that aligns with sociocultural and institutional norms, and is thus more likely to generate sustainable impact.

    View details for DOI 10.1371/journal.pone.0270847

    View details for PubMedID 35857721