The Effects of Water Sanitatiion on Child's Mortality in Rural Ethiopia
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Date
2006-07
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A.A.U
Abstract
The Ethiopian population is very young, with nearly half (43%) of the population
under the age of 15 years. This indicates that there is high potential for future
rapid growth of the economy by using this population. Women and children
constitute 72% of the population. Like in many developing countries, children
under 15 years of age constitute a very large proportion of its population, (43%),
of which around 40% are under five and 8% are under 1 years of age. In 2000,
the under five-mortality rate (U5MR) was estimated at 166 per 1000 live births
(148.6 for urban areas and 192.5 for rural areas), while infant mortality rate was
estimated at 97 per 1000 live births respectively. Diarrhea is a major cause of
death in infancy and childhood, and it is more common in rural areas where 25%
of under five children are susceptible than urban areas where it is only 17%.
Currently, the coverage of safe drinking water and latrines remains very low at
about or less than 30% and 13% respectively. In rural areas only 4% of children's
stool disposed in toilet whereas in urban areas 45% of the children's stool is
disposed in the toilet. And 68% of the children's stool in rural areas is disposed
outside the dwelling, or thrown in the yard. These low levels of access to safe
water and access to excreta disposal are indicators of water and sanitation
problems which are believed to be among the major causes of the child 's death
in the post neonatal and childhood periods. However, the total fertility rate is 5.9
per woman (3.3 for urban and 6.4 for rural) (DHS Ethiopia, 2000), and this
implies that there are distinct differences by residence, with rural women having
twice as many children as urban women. Thus, the relatively high child mortality,
which is in line with the theory of the effect of infant and child mortality on fertility
may have led to increased fertility where mothers give birth to many children
suspecting that the probability of losing some of them is high.
VII
The National Health Indicators for the year 200314 indicate that access to safe
water and access to execrate disposal are estimated at 37.5 and 28.9 percent
respectively taking a sample of 10 cities in the country (Ministry of Health,
2004). Therefore, the communicable diseases attributable to poor sanitation, and
which principally affect the underprivileged sections of the population, are still
deemed as the major health problems in Ethiopia.
In line with this, this project investigated the effect of household environmental
characteristics, that is, water and sanitation on the probability of child mortality.
The analysis is conducted using a Cox Proportional Hazards model. It is a
multivariate model of the child's life duration, which analyses the effects of
household's environmental characteristics such as water a nd sanitation 0 n the
likelihood of the child's death.
Moreover, the study found that improved water supply results in both infant and
child mortality reduction. However, the availability 0 f sanitation facilities per s e
could not result in mortality reductions unless due attention is given for promoting
awareness of the rural society on hygiene practices.
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Keywords
Child's Mortality, Water Sanitation