H.U.T.

Research & IP

Published Original research

Impact of contaminated water on the prevalence of diarrheal diseases in children

Tanveer, H.U.; Rai, R.A.; Aslam, R.F.; Farrukh, M.H.M.; Malik, U.

Frontiers in Health Informatics, 13(8), 5564–5571

What the paper does

Diarrhoea is the second biggest killer of children under five in the world, about 525,000 deaths a year. Most of it traces back to water that is not safe to drink. We went to low-income villages in the Faisalabad district of Pakistan between January and June 2024 and enrolled 100 children under five. We tested the water in each household for E. coli and total coliforms, interviewed the caregivers, and checked the health center records for diarrhoeal episodes in the previous three months.

Nearly half the children, 46 percent, had had diarrhoeal disease in that window. Sixty-five percent of the households were drinking water that failed the World Health Organization’s microbial limits. Children drinking from contaminated sources had about three times the odds of diarrhoea compared with children whose households treated their water. The odds ratio was 3.2, with a confidence interval of 1.5 to 6.8. Boiling or filtering water at home was associated with fewer cases.

Three times the odds

46%of the 100 children under five haddiarrhoeal disease in a three-month window65%of households had E. coli or coliformsabove WHO limits in their drinking waterOdds of diarrhoea, contaminated source compared with treated sourceno difference3.2 times1.56.8odds ratio on a log scale; the bar is the 95% confidence interval; p = 0.003
The two headline rates, and the odds ratio with its 95 percent confidence interval on a log scale. An odds ratio of 1 would mean contaminated and treated sources carried the same risk.

What three times the odds means

Turn an odds ratio into childrenThe paper reports an odds ratio of 3.2 (95% CI 1.5 to 6.8). What that means in children depends on how common the illness already is.
25%

Drag the baseline to see what the ratio implies at any level.

Why it matters

This is the health outcome that my water work is about. It is one study of 100 children in one district. It puts a number on something I grew up seeing: in villages like the ones I come from, the water in most homes fails the basic safety test and the children who drink it have about three times the odds of a diarrhoeal episode.

The paper

Download the paperOpen access. The published PDF.
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Publisher recordThe journal has not listed a DOI for this article.
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CitationTanveer, H.U.; Rai, R.A.; Aslam, R.F.; Farrukh, M.H.M.; Malik, U.. Impact of contaminated water on the prevalence of diarrheal diseases in children. Frontiers in Health Informatics, 13(8), 5564–5571, 2024.
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