Health impact: purchase of drinking water from street vendors leads to higher child mortality in Indonesian slums

Purchase of inexpensive drinking water in urban slums of Indonesia was common and associated with greater child malnutrition, diarrhoea, and infant and under-five child mortality in the family. This is reported from a study [1] that characterized families who purchased drinking water and to examine the relation between purchasing drinking water and child morbidity and mortality, using data collected between 1999 and 2003. Of 143,126 families, 46.8% purchased inexpensive drinking water from street vendors, 47.4% did not purchase water, i.e., had running or spring/well water within household, and 5.8% purchased more expensive water in the previous 7 days. Families that purchased inexpensive drinking water had less educated parents, a more crowded household, a father who smoked, and lower socioeconomic level compared with the other families. Among children of families that purchased inexpensive drinking water, did not purchase drinking water, or purchased more expensive water, the prevalence was, respectively, for diarrhoea in last 7 days (11.2%, 8.1%, 7.7%), and of under-five child mortality (10.4%, 7.1%, 6.4%)

[1] Semba, R.D. … [et al.] (2009). Purchase of drinking water is associated with increased child morbidity and mortality among urban slum-dwelling families in Indonesia. International journal of hygiene and environmental health ; vol. 212, no. 4 : p. 387-97. DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2008.09.001

Contact: Prof. Richard Semba, Department of Ophthalmology, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, USA, rdsemba@jhmi.edu

Keywords

• East Asia & Pacific
• Urban WASH
• Water supply - Water distribution
• Water-related diseases