Abstract
This study assessed drinking water quality, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) conditions among 708 schoolchildren and 562 households in Dolakha and Ramechhap districts of Nepal. Cross-sectional surveys were carried out in March and June 2015. A Delagua water quality testing kit was employed on 634 water samples obtained from 16 purposively selected schools, 40 community water sources, and 562 households to examine water quality. A flame atomic absorption spectrophotometer was used to test lead and arsenic content of the same samples. Additionally, a questionnaire survey was conducted to obtain WASH predictors. A total of 75% of school drinking water source samples and 76.9% point-of-use samples (water bottles) at schools, 39.5% water source samples in the community, and 27.4% point-of-use samples at household levels were contaminated with thermo-tolerant coliforms. The values of water samples for pH (6.8–7.6), free and total residual chlorine (0.1–0.5 mg/L), mean lead concentration (0.01 mg/L), and mean arsenic concentration (0.05 mg/L) were within national drinking water quality standards. The presence of domestic animals roaming inside schoolchildren’s homes was significantly associated with drinking water contamination (adjusted odds ratio: 1.64; 95% confidence interval: 1.08–2.50; p = 0.02). Our findings call for an improvement of WASH conditions at the unit of school, households, and communities.
Highlights
Water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are fundamental to human development and wellbeing.The World Health Organization /United Nations Children’s Fund (WHO/UNICEF) Joint MonitoringProgram (JMP) for water supply and sanitation estimates that, in 2015, 663 million people lacked improved drinking water sources and 2.4 billion lacked improved sanitation facilities [1]
We found a significant association between domestic animals freely roaming in households and contamination of water with tolerant coliforms (TTC) compared to household without freely roaming domestic animals
We found that about one-third of water samples obtained from selected schools and households in two districts of Nepal were unsafe for drinking
Summary
Sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are fundamental to human development and wellbeing.The World Health Organization /United Nations Children’s Fund (WHO/UNICEF) Joint MonitoringProgram (JMP) for water supply and sanitation estimates that, in 2015, 663 million people lacked improved drinking water sources and 2.4 billion lacked improved sanitation facilities [1]. Sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) are fundamental to human development and wellbeing. The World Health Organization /United Nations Children’s Fund (WHO/UNICEF) Joint Monitoring. Program (JMP) for water supply and sanitation estimates that, in 2015, 663 million people lacked improved drinking water sources and 2.4 billion lacked improved sanitation facilities [1]. Unsafe and insufficient quantity of drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and unimproved hygiene account for 7% of the global burden of disease and 19% of child mortality worldwide [2,3]. Res. Public Health 2017, 14, 89; doi:10.3390/ijerph14010089 www.mdpi.com/journal/ijerph
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