Relationship between Water and Sanitation and Maternal Health: Evidence from Indonesia

Lisa Cameron, Claire Chase and Diana Contreras Suarez
Additional contact information
Claire Chase: World Bank Water Global Practice

Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne

Abstract: Poor household water supply and sanitation can affect maternal and newborn health outcomes through several pathways, including the quality of drinking water consumed by pregnant woman and exposure to harmful fecal pathogens in the environment due to poor quality sanitation. Using data on 14,098 pregnancies across four rounds of the Indonesian Family Life Survey (IFLS), we investigate the relationship between water and sanitation and outcomes along the course of a pregnancy - health and complications during pregnancy, probability of a miscarriage, complications during child birth, probability of live birth, and neonatal outcomes including birth weight and newborn survival rates. After controlling for confounding factors, we find that access to at least basic household sanitation is strongly associated with substantially decreased overall risk during pregnancy and birth. Whether or not a household has access to at least basic sanitation is strongly significantly associated with a lower probability of miscarriage and is a strong predictor of high fever during labor (an indicator of infection). We find no systematic association between household access to basic water and maternal and newborn outcomes. We also find no evidence of herd protection resulting from high levels of sanitation within the community.

Keywords: Sanitation; water; maternal health; neonatal health; Indonesia; developing countries (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I15 O15 Q59 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 39pp
Date: 2021-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dev, nep-env, nep-hea and nep-sea
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://melbourneinstitute.unimelb.edu.au/__data/a ... 869349/wp2021n14.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Relationship between water and sanitation and maternal health: Evidence from Indonesia (2021)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:iae:iaewps:wp2021n14

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Melbourne Institute Working Paper Series from Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, The University of Melbourne, Victoria 3010 Australia. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sheri Carnegie ().