Point-Of-Use Water Treatment Systems In Rural Haiti: Human Health And Water Quality Impact Assessment

Unsafe water is a leading cause of death and disease in economically disadvantaged societies. The development of centralised large-scale water treatment and supply systems has proven to be a slow, expensive strategy to provide safe drinking water in many lowincome countries. Governments and non-governmental organisations have therefore increasingly been promoting point-of-use water treatment technologies in communities without reliable municipal water supplies. These technologies aim to be low-cost sustainable solutions that rely on filtration, disinfection and safe storage to improve source water quality. This thesis assesses the health and water quality impact of a pointof-use water treatment program being implemented in rural Haiti by a non-governmental organisation. An observational differential study was used to measure health outcomes in 120 families in the village of Dumay. Bivariate and multivariate statistical methods were used to quantify the impact of the water treatment system in reducing the incidence of diarrhea, after controlling for socio-economic differences in the population. The study established that persons with access to the water purification system experienced a five percentage point lower incidence of diarrhea than an equivalent individual without access to the water treatment system. As part of the water quality impact assessment study, the microbial content of source water and stored water in intervention and non-intervention households was measured using membrane filtration tests. Source water in Dumay, especially that drawn from wells, was found to have a low microbial content. Treated water in intervention households was found to be very pure. Untreated water in nonintervention households was found to be significantly more contaminated than source water, suggesting post-collection contamination is a major problem. Thesis Supervisor: Harold F. Hemond Professor, Civil and Environmental Engineering Title: