Household wastewater management in sub-Saharan Africa: a review

Abstract

AbstractWastewater is the major source of the transmission of disease-causing organisms in developing countries. There is a strong association between diarrhoea and contaminated water worldwide. Evidence linking sanitation practices to a positive impact on health is scarce although many studies have reported a reduction of disease through improvements in waste management. This review in prospect examined the impact of wastewater management interventions in resource-poor countries of sub-Saharan Africa for the reduction of diarrhoeal outcomes in non-outbreak situations. This review of empirical literature identified and assessed the impact of effective wastewater management on public health in sub-Saharan Africa and evaluated the implications to public health practice. A systematic database search was carried out, relevant research articles were screened, and some of the articles were considered to contain relevant materials but only 5 met the inclusion criteria and were used in this study. Despite the limited number of studies meeting the inclusion criteria, there was reliable evidence of the impact of wastewater management in all the studies based on the strong positive statistical association between interventions and the reduction of diarrhoeal morbidity. Wastewater management interventions are effective for the reduction of illnesses due to diarrhoea in agreement with other previous reviews on water, hygiene, and sanitation interventions. This underlines the need for good strategies for effective wastewater management. This study contributes valuable insights to the existing body of knowledge and calls for sustained efforts in developing comprehensive wastewater management solutions in the quest for improved outcomes in sub-Saharan Africa.