IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0091847.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Impact of the Provision of Safe Drinking Water on School Absence Rates in Cambodia: A Quasi-Experimental Study

Author

Listed:
  • Paul R Hunter
  • Helen Risebro
  • Marie Yen
  • Hélène Lefebvre
  • Chay Lo
  • Philippe Hartemann
  • Christophe Longuet
  • François Jaquenoud

Abstract

Background: Education is one of the most important drivers behind helping people in developing countries lift themselves out of poverty. However, even when schooling is available absenteeism rates can be high. Recently interest has focussed on whether or not WASH interventions can help reduce absenteeism in developing countries. However, none has focused exclusively on the role of drinking water provision. We report a study of the association between absenteeism and provision of treated water in containers into schools. Methods and Findings: We undertook a quasi-experimental longitudinal study of absenteeism rates in 8 schools, 4 of which received one 20 L container of treated drinking water per day. The water had been treated by filtration and ultraviolet disinfection. Weekly absenteeism rates were compared across all schools using negative binomial model in generalized estimating equations. There was a strong association with provision of free water and reduced absenteeism (Incidence rate ratio = 0.39 (95% Confidence Intervals 0.27–0.56)). However there was also a strong association with season (wet versus dry) and a significant interaction between receiving free water and season. In one of the intervention schools it was discovered that the water supplier was not fulfilling his contract and was not delivering sufficient water each week. In this school we showed a significant association between the number of water containers delivered each week and absenteeism (IRR = 0.98 95%CI 0.96–1.00). Conclusion: There appears to be a strong association between providing free safe drinking water and reduced absenteeism, though only in the dry season. The mechanism for this association is not clear but may in part be due to improved hydration leading to improved school experience for the children.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul R Hunter & Helen Risebro & Marie Yen & Hélène Lefebvre & Chay Lo & Philippe Hartemann & Christophe Longuet & François Jaquenoud, 2014. "Impact of the Provision of Safe Drinking Water on School Absence Rates in Cambodia: A Quasi-Experimental Study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 9(3), pages 1-5, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0091847
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0091847
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0091847
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0091847&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0091847?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Basu, Alaka Malwade & Stephenson, Rob, 2005. "Low levels of maternal education and the proximate determinants of childhood mortality: a little learning is not a dangerous thing," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 60(9), pages 2011-2023, May.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Vesco, P. & Baliki, G. & Brück, T. & Döring, S. & Eriksson, A. & Fjelde, H. & Guha-Sapir, D. & Hall, J. & Knutsen, C. H. & Leis, M. R. & Mueller, H. & Rauh, C. & Rudolfsen, I. & Swain, A., 2024. "The Impacts of Armed Conflict on Human Development," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 2462, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    2. Aggarwal, Khushboo & Barua, Rashmi & Vidal-Fernandez, Marian, 2024. "Still Waters Run Deep: Groundwater Contamination and Education Outcomes in India," Economics of Education Review, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    3. Aggarwal, Khushboo & Barua, Rashmi & Vidal-Fernandez, Marian, 2024. "Still Waters Run Deep: Groundwater Contamination and Education Outcomes in India," IZA Discussion Papers 16863, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    4. Perez-Felkner, Lara & Felkner, John S. & Nix, Samantha & Magalhães, Melissa, 2020. "The puzzling relationship between international development and gender equity: The case of STEM postsecondary education in Cambodia," International Journal of Educational Development, Elsevier, vol. 72(C).
    5. JieYeon Celes Moon & Lewis Seagull, 2020. "Addressing Cambodia’s Clean Water Infrastructure," Proceedings of the 18th International RAIS Conference, August 17-18, 2020 023jym, Research Association for Interdisciplinary Studies.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Susanna M Makela & Rakhi Dandona & T R Dilip & Lalit Dandona, 2013. "Social Sector Expenditure and Child Mortality in India: A State-Level Analysis from 1997 to 2009," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(2), pages 1-10, February.
    2. Pradeep Kumar Choudhury, 2015. "Explaining the Role of Parental Education in the Regional Variations in Infant Mortality in India," Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 2(3), pages 544-572, September.
    3. Josh M. Colston & Abu S. G. Faruque & M. Jahangir Hossain & Debasish Saha & Suman Kanungo & Inácio Mandomando & M. Imran Nisar & Anita K. M. Zaidi & Richard Omore & Robert F. Breiman & Samba O. Sow & , 2020. "Associations between Household-Level Exposures and All-Cause Diarrhea and Pathogen-Specific Enteric Infections in Children Enrolled in Five Sentinel Surveillance Studies," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(21), pages 1-18, November.
    4. Shroff, Monal R. & Griffiths, Paula L. & Suchindran, Chirayath & Nagalla, Balakrishna & Vazir, Shahnaz & Bentley, Margaret E., 2011. "Does maternal autonomy influence feeding practices and infant growth in rural India?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 73(3), pages 447-455, August.
    5. Chandan Kumar & Prashant Kumar Singh & Rajesh Kumar Rai, 2012. "Under-Five Mortality in High Focus States in India: A District Level Geospatial Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 7(5), pages 1-15, May.
    6. Saifuddin Ahmed & Andreea A Creanga & Duff G Gillespie & Amy O Tsui, 2010. "Economic Status, Education and Empowerment: Implications for Maternal Health Service Utilization in Developing Countries," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(6), pages 1-6, June.
    7. Prashant Kumar Singh, 2013. "Trends in Child Immunization across Geographical Regions in India: Focus on Urban-Rural and Gender Differentials," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(9), pages 1-11, September.
    8. Vikram, Kriti & Vanneman, Reeve & Desai, Sonalde, 2012. "Linkages between maternal education and childhood immunization in India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 75(2), pages 331-339.
    9. Agyen, Vida Afarebea & Annim, Samuel Kobina & Asmah, Emmanuel Ekow, 2024. "Neighbourhood mothers’ education and its differential impact on stunting: Evidence from 30 Sub-Saharan African countries," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    10. Samia Badji, 2016. "Mother's Education and Increased Child Survival in Madagascar: What Can We Say?," Working Papers 1635, Groupe d'Analyse et de Théorie Economique Lyon St-Étienne (GATE Lyon St-Étienne), Université de Lyon.
    11. Quamruzzaman, Amm & Mendoza Rodríguez, José M. & Heymann, Jody & Kaufman, Jay S. & Nandi, Arijit, 2014. "Are tuition-free primary education policies associated with lower infant and neonatal mortality in low- and middle-income countries?," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 153-159.
    12. G. Naline & Brinda Viswanathan, 2017. "Predictors of Age-Specific Childhood Mortality in India," Working Papers 2017-167, Madras School of Economics,Chennai,India.
    13. Alaka Malwade Basu, 2014. "Literacy and Mothering: How Women's Schooling Changes the Lives of the World's Children," Population Studies, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 68(2), pages 241-244, July.
    14. Emily Smith-Greenaway, 2015. "Educational attainment and adult literacy," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 33(35), pages 1015-1034.
    15. Guojun He & Jeffrey M. Perloff, 2016. "Surface Water Quality and Infant Mortality in China," Economic Development and Cultural Change, University of Chicago Press, vol. 65(1), pages 119-139.
    16. Reena Kumari & Rekha Gupta, 2022. "A logistic regression analysis of determinants of child malnutrition in Uttar Pradesh, India," Journal of Community Positive Practices, Catalactica NGO, issue 2, pages 79-98.
    17. Karen G. Añaños Bedriñana & José Antonio Rodríguez Martín & Fanny T. Añaños, 2021. "Human Rights in the Least Developed Countries of Asia: An Index for Quantifying Sustainable Development Goal 3 (Good Health and Wellbeing)," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(9), pages 1-17, April.
    18. Fatima Zahra & Nicole Haberland & Stephanie Psaki, 2022. "PROTOCOL: Causal mechanisms linking education with fertility, HIV, and child mortality: A systematic review," Campbell Systematic Reviews, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 18(2), June.
    19. Carolyn B. Reyes & Heather Randell, 2023. "Household Shocks and Adolescent Well-Being in Peru," Population Research and Policy Review, Springer;Southern Demographic Association (SDA), vol. 42(3), pages 1-22, June.
    20. Liliana Andriano & Christiaan W. S. Monden, 2019. "The Causal Effect of Maternal Education on Child Mortality: Evidence From a Quasi-Experiment in Malawi and Uganda," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 56(5), pages 1765-1790, October.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0091847. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.