ii72 European Journal of Public Health, Volume 33 Supplement 2, 2023
Zeynep Or
IRDES, Paris, France
Antonio Giulio de Belvis
Fondazione Policlinico Universitario A. Gemelli-IRCCS,
Rome, Italy
3.N. Skills building seminar: Publishing and
disseminating your research: How to get
published, and what then?
Abstract citation ID: ckad160.188
Organised by: EUPHA
Chair persons: Monica Brı̂nzac (EUPHAnxt)
Contact: Peter.Allebeck@ki.se
Getting your public health research published can be a real
challenge, and the publishing process is not always clear. Often
it takes a lot of time, effort and perseverance. In this skills-
building workshop, participants will be able to learn the ropes
from the Editor-in-Chief and the Publisher (OUP) of the
European Journal of Public Health (EJPH), EUPHA’s scientific
Journal. The EJPH is a well-established multidisciplinary,
Open Access journal that covers a broad scope of public health
topics. It’s 2021 impact factor is 4.424. The workshop will have
the format of an interactive clinic and will start with short
presentations by the Editor-in-Chief of the EJPH and the
Publisher, on how to write, how to disseminate your findings
and tools the publisher has for helping promote your research
for the best impact. The Editor-in-Chief will focus on what
makes manuscripts attractive to editors and reviewers, while
the publisher will give an overview of the publishing process,
important aspects of the wider publishing industry (including
3.O. Workshop: Students avoiding school toilets: a
universal, unrecognized & rarely discussed public
health issue
Abstract citation ID: ckad160.189
Organised by: EHESP School of Public Health (France), EUPHA-CAPH
Chair persons: Emmanuelle Godeau (France), Julia Dratva (EUPHA-
CAPH)
Contact: emmanuelle.godeau@ehesp.fr
Based on recent statistics, access to school toilets can be
considered no more an issue in the European region (UNICEF,
2020). However, presence is not equivalent to use. Four
complementary perspectives will illustrate this universal yet
unrecognised and underdiscussed public health issue: the
avoidance of school toilets by children and adolescents. The
workshop will be introduced by a presentation about WHO
initiatives, perspectives and recommendations on sanitation
and handwashing facilities in schools. Putting the European
specificities in a global context will allow us to understand the
difference between access and use that will drive the other
presentations. The next presentation, will question Youth
popular culture regarding school toilets. For many adolescents,
popular culture is the primary way in which they learn about
people’s experiences, therefore, the way toilets are pictured in
popular culture such as books or films may influence
adolescents’ use of school toilets, even if they are not aware
of that. This presentation will analyse some examples of how
school toilets are presented in Young Adults’ fictions and
popular films. This will help finding ways to talk about and
Nathan Shuftan
Berlin University of Technology, Berlin, Germany
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/33/Supplement_2/ckad160.189/7328498 by guest on 25 October 2023
Open Access) and give authors tips of how to promote their
articles post-publication. After that, there will be ample time
for participants to ask their questions to the panellists. This
skills-building workshop will be of interest to anyone who
would like to increase their chances of getting published and
who would like to learn more about creating impact with their
publications. The session should in particular be helpful for
young researchers who do not have a lot of publishing
experience yet.
Key messages:
 Think about relevance to public health, and what your
research adds to science and policy.
 Think about what tools you can use to disseminate your
findings.
Speakers/Panelists:
Peter Allebeck
Karolinska Institute, Department of Global Public Health,
Stockholm, Sweden
Rachel Moriarty
Oxford University Press, Oxford, UK
alleviate concerns about the use of toilets in school by
adolescents. The next presentation will give a Dutch insight:
in 2023, master students under the supervision of a health
sociologist and a paediatrician conducted an online survey on
school toilets use by secondary pupils and reasons not to use
them. The findings aim at advising schools on how they can
adapt so that pupils use school toilets more often, but as well
they may serve to advocate the topic to general practitioners,
paediatricians, and youth health care physicians about health
issues related to this public health problem. The last
presentation will be driven by a health promotion and
pedagogical perspective, through the example of the training
of French school doctors. Since 40 years they have periodically
addressed the issue of underuse of school toilets by children
and adolescents, with the same negative findings. In 2022, 24
school doctors have worked again on the topic with health
promotion’s methods. Overall, their health priority stood as:
‘‘School toilets, a place of challenges and a reflection of the
well-being of each and every pupil’’. From there, some have
built a tool to assess toilets in schools and the readiness of the
staff to act upon the findings in a health promotion
perspective. In conclusion, our perspectives, based on findings
from different EU countries are rather complementary and
coherent: children and adolescents underuse school toilets,
despite their presence, leading to medical problems, lower

well-being at school with the risk to endanger their learning
availability. This confirms, if needed, that this is still a true
public health issue. Some of the findings around the issue of
safety (environmental as well as psychological) seem to be
universal and will be discussed with the audience.
Key messages:
 Underuse of school toilets by pupils is a true yet under-
addressed public health issue even in Europe.
 Safety (environmental and psychological), could be a lever
to improve the use of school toilets by pupils.
Abstract citation ID: ckad160.190
Progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene in
schools: global overview on the WASH programme
Valentina Baltag
V Baltag1
1
Adolescent and Young Adult Health, WHO, Geneva, Switzerland
Contact: baltagv@who.int
Context:
Safe drinking-water, sanitation and hygiene are crucial to
human health and well-being. Safe WASH is not only a
prerequisite to health, but contributes to livelihoods, school
attendance and dignity and helps to create resilient commu-
nities living in healthy environments. WHO and UNICEF,
through the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme
(JMP), produce internationally comparable estimates of
progress on drinking water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH)
and are responsible for monitoring the Sustainable
Development Goal (SDG) targets related to WASH. Since the
establishment of the SDGs, the JMP has published global
baseline reports on WASH in households (2017), WASH in
schools (2018) and WASH in health care facilities (2019), and
a progress update on households (2019).
Objectives:
To put the European findings in a global perspective regarding
school toilets.
Results:
Findings from the last report published under this JMP (2021)
will be presented, updating national, regional and global
estimates for WASH in schools up to the year 2019, with a
special focus on the implications for ensuring the safety of
students and school staff during and after the coronavirus
disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. Using service ladders to
benchmark and compare progress across countries on WASH
in schools by tracking progress towards a basic level of service,
as the indicator used for global monitoring of SDG targets
related to WASH in schools, we will see that situations are
contrasted. Globally 63% of schools had a basic sanitation
service in 2019, while it is the case of 99% of schools in Europe
and Northern America. The differences are of the same level
regarding basic drinking water service in schools (respectively
69% vs. 99%), as well as for basic hygiene (resp. 57% vs. 98%).
Conclusions:
Those results illustrate the paradox that existence of a given
facility, access and use are not equivalent and need to be
explored further.
Abstract citation ID: ckad160.191
Using popular culture to fill in the gaps in public
health knowledge – the case of school toilets
Michal Molcho
M Molcho1
1
School of Education, University of Galway, Galway, Ireland
Contact: michal.molcho@universityofgalway.ie
Background:
Avoiding going to the toilets during the school day has serious
implications on children’s health and education. Concerns
16th European Public Health Conference 2023 ii73
about using the toilets may also lead to reduce intake of fluid,
resulting in dehydration and associated dizziness, fatigue and
poor concentration, compromising children’s education as
well as their overall well-being. Yet, there is limited evidence
on the reasons behind children’s tendency to avoid using the
school’s toilets. To address this paper presents the representa-
tion of school in popular culture, as a way to understand how
children perceive school toilets.
Methods:
Popular culture play a significant role in shaping perceptions
of places and people, serving as the primary way in which they
learn about people’s experiences. Thus, the way the toilets are
represented in popular culture such as books or films may
influence adolescents’ use of public toilets, even if they are not
Downloaded from https://academic.oup.com/eurpub/article/33/Supplement_2/ckad160.189/7328498 by guest on 25 October 2023
aware of that. This paper explores some films, young adults
books and children books to identify the narratives around
school toilets as portrayed in popular culture/
Results:
The narrative of school toilets in popular media can be divided
to three main themes, toilets as a place that provides safety and
privacy from the prying eyes of both peers and the authorities;
toilets as a space for illegitimate activities, aggression and
bullying; spaces where sub-cultures and anti-establishment
activities emerge. While these themes are not mutually
exclusive, each has its unique aspect in the perception and
representation of the role that school toilets play in children’s
lives.
Discussion:
This presentation will help shaping the conversation about a
public health problem that is rarely discussed. It will shed a
light on the perceived role of public toilets and will help
finding way to address and alleviate concerns about using
toilets in school.
Abstract citation ID: ckad160.192
Avoiding school toilets in the Netherlands; should we
worry?
Danielle Jansen
D Jansen1, K Illy2
1
Department of Primary Care and Long-term Care, University Medical
Center Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands
2
Pediatrics, Hospital Rivierenland, Tiel, Netherlands
Contact: d.e.m.c.jansen@umcg.nl
Background:
one can assume that toilet use by young people is not a
problem in the Netherlands because there are sufficient toilets
available at all schools. However, international research shows
that a substantial number of young people avoid school toilets.
It is unknown to what extent Dutch young people avoid school
toilets.
Methods:
from spring 2023 we recruited young people between the ages
of 16 and 25 (all school levels) throughout the Netherlands.
Young people who agreed to participate in the study were
asked to complete an online questionnaire with questions
about their toilet visits during their secondary school period
(did they avoid school toilets or not), reasons for avoiding
school toilets and the absence/presence of physical, mental and
concentration problems during their secondary school period.
We analysed our findings. Data will be analysed descriptively
by means of a regression analysis.
Results:
results are not yet available, but we expect - based on previous
study - that at least one in four young people avoid using the
toilet at their secondary school period, that girls avoid school
toilets more than boys and that older teenagers avoid school
toilets more than younger teenagers. We expect the following
reasons for avoiding school toilets: feeling unsafe in the school
toilets, lack of toilet hygiene, lack of privacy, limited access to
the toilet during classes and shame. We also expect that young