Water, women, and children’s health

by Ruth Schechter on 12/06/10 at 10:00am

Almost 1 billion people worldwide live without safe drinking water and more than
twice that number people don’t have basic hygiene facilities. As a result, 1.8 million
children die from diarrhea each year—one of the most pervasive and preventable
causes of child mortality.

For many households in Tanzania, diarrheal disease persists despite their having
access to relatively safe sources of drinking water. Though 47 percent of the
population uses improved sanitation and more than 60 percent has access to clean
water, diarrhea still causes 17 percent of all deaths among children under age 5.

Though the water comes pristine from the tap, it still may be contaminated at home or not used properly to keep
contamination at bay, says Jenna Davis, PhD, an assistant professor of civil and environmental engineering and a
2009-10 Clayman Institute faculty research fellow. “Having the infrastructure to deliver clean water is not enough.
If water is contaminated at home by inadequate hygiene practices, there will be little improvement to family
health.”

Most families in Tanzania get their water from non-networked sources—a communal handpump or tap that
requires several trips a day for household water needed for cooking, cleaning, and bathing. Public taps can be as
far as a kilometer away, and a typical water container weighs 44 pounds when full, making those trips back and
forth both time-consuming and physically demanding.

The job of fetching the household water goes to the women and girls of the family
compound. Davis estimates that fetching water in sub-Saharan Africa takes about a
half-hour per day for each adult woman. And while the United Nations’ Millennium
Development Goals consider a water tap 1 kilometer from home as a safe water
source, the distance may be over steep terrain, taking even more time out of a
woman’s work day. The time may also affect girls’ schoolwork, although Davis says
these potential impacts have not been fully researched.

Though most women, when interviewed by Davis and her team, seem to
understand how water gets tainted, when water is hard to come by, careful
hygiene falls behind drinking and cooking needs.

But hand washing is only part of the picture. For Davis, the bigger problem involves A woman carrying water
the “five Fs”—flies, food, fingers, feces, and fields (which are sometimes used as from a stream. Randy
latrines). Women use sand to scrub out pots, which may harbor fecal Plett/iStockphoto
contamination. Children may play barefoot or
accidently touch fecal material. Roofless “passport”
latrines are common, which allow flies to spread
disease. Though many women find this style of
latrine uncomfortable, men traditionally control
household expenditures and are reluctant to invest
in more sanitary but more costly models.

“Women are largely responsible for taking care of

the family and the home,” says Davis, who studied
300 families over 10 weeks and recently received a
grant to expand her research to 1,200 families for a
full year. “If women were in charge of finances, it’s A typical water containter weights 44 pounds when
likely that hygiene would get greater attention.” full. Ivory Coast (Sean Warren/iStockphoto)

Davis is working to develop educational material targeted specifically to women that will help them develop daily
routines that can be applied easily and consistently, using reminders that resonate on a personal level.

“One in nine kids doesn’t make it to their sixth birthday. We need to trigger actions to change what’s normal and
accepted,” says Davis. “If anyone has the potential to make a change, it’s the women.”

You can read more about Davis and her team on their blog, News from the Poop Group.

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