The article analyzes global progress in household sanitation during the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) using a new metric called the Sanitation Ladder Score. This score considers different levels of sanitation service, such as improved, shared, and unimproved facilities, to provide a more detailed picture of progress. The researchers found that many countries made more progress on the Sanitation Ladder Score than on the traditional MDG metric. Countries with significant improvements in shared sanitation showed greater progress on the Sanitation Ladder Score. The researchers suggest that this new scoring system can help track progress more accurately and could be adapted for other Sustainable Development Goals targets.