Environmental quality, gender and health outcomes in Southern Ghana

Charles Okyere ()

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development, 2020, vol. 22, issue 8, No 33, 7865-7886

Abstract: Abstract Using panel data collected from two administrative districts in Southern Ghana, this study investigates the relationship between environmental quality and health outcomes of households and individuals for a large set of water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) indicators. The WASH indicators included in this study are comprehensive than those in most studies. Data analyses are undertaken using standard econometric techniques and double-robust multivalued treatment effects estimator. The study finds that there are relative and multiple overlapping policy effects of water and sanitation options in decreasing household diarrhea incidence. The estimates suggest that households’ use of improved water sources led to a statistically significant reduction in illness incidence of males but had little effect on females. The effects of households’ use of improved sanitation were generally mixed. Drinking water quantity decreased household diarrhea incidence but had little effects on individual illness incidence and distribution. The study does not find evidence that high microbial water quality decreases individual illness and household diarrhea incidence. The results suggest that the efficiency of water and sanitation interventions may depend on the gender of individuals, and indicators and unit of measurement of health outcomes.

Keywords: Health; Microbial water quality; Multiple overlapping treatment effects; Sanitation; Water quantity (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (2)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s10668-019-00550-x Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
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:spr:endesu:v:22:y:2020:i:8:d:10.1007_s10668-019-00550-x

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/10668

DOI: 10.1007/s10668-019-00550-x

Access Statistics for this article

Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development is currently edited by Luc Hens

More articles in Environment, Development and Sustainability: A Multidisciplinary Approach to the Theory and Practice of Sustainable Development from Springer
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().