Salinity and water-related disease risk in coastal Bangladesh

Khatun Asma and Koji Kotani

No SDES-2019-9, Working Papers from Kochi University of Technology, School of Economics and Management

Abstract: An increase in surface and ground-water salinity due to climate change is reported to have become a great threat to the health of coastal inhabitants in Bangladesh. However, little is known about how much such salinity affects the risk of water-related diseases and how such risk can be mitigated in the field. This research examines the association between water-related diseases and coastal salinity along with sociodemographic and anthropometric factors. We conduct questionnaire surveys with 527 households: 273 subjects from the non-salinity and 254 subjects from the salinity rural coastal areas of Bangladesh. The logistic regression analysis demonstrates that the probability of suffering from water-borne, water-washed and water-related diseases are 8%, 14% and 11% higher in the salinity areas than in the non-salinity areas, respectively. However, it is identified that people who consume rainwater as a drinking source and/or belong to “normal body mass index†have less chances of being affected by water-related diseases even in the salinity areas than those who drink ground/pond water and/or belong to “underweight body mass index.†Overall, the results suggest that the long-term reservation of rainwater and addressing communitybased food security & nutrition programs shall be effective countermeasures to reduce the risk of health problems in the coastal population and to sustain their lives even under the threat of land salinity.

Keywords: Water-borne diseases; water-washed diseases; water-related diseases; salinity; body mass index (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 31 pages
Date: 2019-11, Revised 2019-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-agr and nep-env
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Published in SDE Series, November 2019, pages 1-31

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:kch:wpaper:sdes-2019-9

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