Effectiveness of Ceramic Filter Water Treatment Method in Improving Drinking Water Quality and Reducing Water-Related Disease: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis

Abstract

Lack of access to improved drinking water sources is global problem. Millions of peoples cannot get safe drinking water as defined by the World Health Organization (WHO) Guidelines for Drinking Water Quality. Untreated drinking water has been reported in different studies as one of the major contributors to the human health problem (water related disease) such as cholera, typhoid, viral hepatitis and dysentery, and responsible for death of people in million each year. Middle and low-income countries more affected by the problem. To scope up this problem many of these countries started to use household level water treatment methods like: chlorination, solar disinfection and ceramic water treatment method. The aim of this study is to pool out the available research evidence on the effectiveness of the ceramic filter water treatment method in reducing diarrhea in both children and adults. Searches were conducted in PubMed, Google Scholar databases and references to other studies. The review included RCT studies on both children and adults found anywhere in the world regardless of sex, ethnicity and socioeconomic status, and religion which were published or conducted in English from December 2000 to January 2022. Studies that compared the diarrhea incidence between the intervention groups who were exposed to ceramic filter disinfection water treatment and the control group who were not exposed to such water treatment. Two independent reviewers critically reviewed and appraised the selected studies. Effect sizes were expressed in risk ratio and in their 95% CIs. 9 eligible studies were identified out of total of 14,007 studies pooled from data bases. In all identified studies, ceramic filter water treatment method reduced the risk of diarrhea in both children and adults. The estimated pooled risk ratio of diarrhea among participants who used ceramic filter disinfection water treatment method was 0.49 (0.41, 0.57). The overall pooled results of the study show that using of ceramic disinfection water treatment method had reduced the risk of diarrheal disease by 51%. This study indicates using of ceramic disinfection water treatment method significantly reduced the risk of diarrheal disease both in children and adults.