ASSOCIATION OF STORAGE AND SANITARY PRACTICES WITH BIOLOGICAL QUALITY OF DRINKING WATER AT HOUSEHOLD LEVEL IN NORTHERN INDIA: A CROSS-SECTIONAL STUDY
Navneet Kaur, Sanjay Gupta, Preeti Padda*, Vishal Gupta, Shalini Devgan and Shamim Monga
ABSTRACT
Background: About two third of India’s surface water is contaminated which has led to crisis of ground water over use. The data available on quality of water supply at household level is limited. So, this study was conducted to assess the association of storage, sanitary practices with biological quality of drinking water. Materials and Methods: Required sample size was calculated using formula 4pq/E2 and equal number of households (170 each) were selected from urban, rural and urban slums of study area using Systematic Random Sampling (SRS). Prior to this, Probability proportionate to size (PPS) was used to select eight urban wards, ten villages and four urban slums from which a total sample size of 510 was drawn. After interviewing the eldest member of the household, information on socio-demographic profile, drinking water storage and sanitation practices followed at household level were recorded in a semi-structured questionnaire. Results: Water storage practices at household level observed, majority 282 (55%) stored drinking water in camphor, 474 (93%) of containers had wide mouth (> 5cm) and 464 (91%) containers were covered. Out of 102 drinking water samples 73 (72%) were found to be bacteriologically contaminated and contamination was found to be associated with place of residence (aOR =1.7; 95% CI= 0.964-3.03), container without tap (aOR =3.6; 95% CI= 1.3-10.2) and drinking water treatment (aOR =1.9; 95% CI= 0.6-5.1). Conclusions: Overall water storage practices were satisfactory in the households of urban areas but bacteriological quality of drinking water was poor for all three areas under study.
Keywords: Drinking water, Biological quality, Sanitary facility, Storage.
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