Assessment of drinking water access and household water insecurity: A cross sectional study in three rural communities of the Menoua division, West Cameroon

Abstract

Water is a physiological need, key for survival. In limited water access situations, health, well-being, and productivity of households are negatively affected. Water insecurity refers to when access to adequate amount of clean water does not occur all the times for household members to lead a healthy and active life. A cross sectional study was conducted with 121 women from three rural communities in the West-Cameroon, to assess water insecurity experience and its correlation with related indicators. Specifically, this study aimed to: examine drinking water access by time spent on collection and distance to the water source, determine the prevalence of household water insecurity, and examine the relationship between water insecurity and diarrhea as well as drinking water access-related indicators. The main sources of drinking water included boreholes (69%), wells (13%), and rivers (12%). Each household spent an average total amount of 3 hours on water fetching. The mean duration of the drinking water stored was 4 days, after which the process was repeated. The majority of households (94.2%) were water insecure (total WATINE-17 score ≥1). About 61% reported drinking less water than they felt they should and 32% of them, said they had to drink dirty water. Water insecurity mean score was higher in households who reported diarrhea among their 0–5 years old children than their counterparts (p = 0.008). This study highlights the problem that good access to improved water source still represents in low-resource households of rural areas, with the subsequent complex interactions on women and children’s health. Future research on water management and storage is warranted to understand the sources of cross-contamination and to identify the potential points of intervention to ensure safe drinking water for rural households. Policies should be designed in order to incorporate systematic household water insecurity measurement in monitoring advancement towards 2030 SDG.