No Surprises Here

by Pauline Vu

If the connection between clean water and health was ever in doubt, a new study definitively puts that question to rest.

Due to unsafe water, there are 4.7 more deaths per 1,000 children under age five in countries like Niger than there are in countries like the United States. Due to unimproved sanitation, there are 6.6 more deaths for every 1,000 children under five.

The report, published in the U.K. journal Environmental Health by researchers at the United Nations University and McMaster University in Canada, is the first to quantify the death rates of mothers in the first year after childbirth and children under five as a result of unsafe water and unimproved sanitation.

“If the world is to seriously address the Millennium Development Goals of reducing child and maternal mortality, then improved water and sanitation accesses are key strategies,” the authors said.

The study divided 193 countries into four tiers, ranking ease of access to clean water and adequate sanitation. Not surpisingly, Niger was placed in the bottom 25 percent.

In addition to young children, new mothers also fare poorly when access to clean water and sanitation is limited. From the bottom tier of countries to each tier above it, a new mother’s odds of dying increases 42 percent due to unsafe water. Their odds of dying increase ever more—48 percent—from one tier to the next as a result of unimproved sanitation.

{photo by Barbara Goldberg}

While progress is being made to improve the lives of people in the poorest countries, this study shows that there’s still a need to increase efforts like those of Wells Bring Hope to help the women and children of Niger by drilling more wells and improving sanitation. Clean water and sanitation don’t just improve women’s and children’s standard of living—they offer a child a better chance of celebrating a fifth birthday, and they provide a mother the precious gift of hope that she will see her children grow up.