How does sanitation affect health

For adolescent girls, the presence of a safe water supply and clean, functioning, private toilet facilities can be the difference between dropping out and getting an education. Furthermore, hygiene education at school can begin a lifetime of better health for all children. Handover of solar-powered water pump to local community to the community of Gormoyok village in Rejaf Payam in South Sudan. Welcome to the United Nations. UN-Water The benefits of having access to an improved drinking water source can only be fully realized when there is also access to improved sanitation and adherence to good hygiene practices.

Beyond the immediate, obvious advantages of people being hydrated and healthier, access to water, sanitation and hygiene — known collectively as WASH — has profound wider socio-economic impacts, particularly for women and girls. Current situation Today, 2 billion people lack access to safely managed drinking water services and 3. The impact on child mortality rates is devastating with more than children under five who die every day from diarrhoeal diseases due to poor sanitation, poor hygiene, or unsafe drinking water.

Germs are tiny living things that cause sickness. Sometimes it is easy to know where germs are - in feces, rotting foods, and other dirty places. But sometimes, germs are in places that look and smell clean.

Germs can pass directly from person to person through touch, and sometimes through the air with dust or when people cough or sneeze. They can spread through food and drinking water. Or they can be carried by flies and animals. Germs that cause diarrhea travel on these paths:. Important: washing hands c The Hesparian Sanitation. Bladder and kidney infections. Infections of the bladder and kidney are caused by germs. These infections are much more common in women than in men because germs can easily get into the body through the urinary opening near the vagina.

Infections of the urinary system can be mild or severe and even life-threatening. Causes of bladder infections Germs can enter the urinary opening and cause infection when a woman:. A girl or woman of any age - even a small baby - can get an infection of her urine system. Kidney infections are more serious than bladder infections because the kidney can get so sick that it stops working. While plenty of water, herbal remedies, or sulfa drugs usually cure a urinary tract infection, a kidney infection often needs more treatment.

If you have the signs of a kidney infection, see a health worker right away. Woman feeling unwell c The Hesparian Sanitation. Diarrhea and dehydration. Many people die from diarrhea diseases, especially children. These diseases are often caused when germs get into drinking water or food. Most children who die from diarrhea die because they do not have enough water left in their bodies. This lack of water is called dehydration. People of any age can become dehydrated, but dehydration can happen very quickly to small children and is most dangerous for them.

Any child with watery diarrhea is in danger of dehydration. Tips for teachers to protect themselves and their students.

Tips for your family on how to safely enjoy spending time outdoors. Programme Menu Water, Sanitation and Hygiene. Challenge Solution Resources. Open defecation The practice of defecating in the open such as in fields, bushes, or by bodies of water can be devastating for public health. Fatoumata Traore 14 is a student who has taught good hygiene practices at school. Here she shows us how she washes her hands in a pit latrine, in Sirakoro village. Become a donor Social. There are also social impacts of poor sanitation provision in schools.

An absence of latrines with separate facilities for girls and boys means that post-pubescent girls are more likely to stop attending schools, especially when menstruating this is covered in Study Session When healthy children attend a school with well segregated sanitation facilities, they are present more regularly and are better learners.

This, in turn, makes them better able to find jobs that demand higher-level skills on finishing school; an advantage to them, their families and the community as a whole. This contributes to wider economic benefits, as discussed in the following section.

A healthy community has many economic advantages over an unhealthy one. If people are healthy they will spend less money on health care and the loss of work days due to diarrhoea and other related infections is reduced. Illness can affect both the sick person and their family, for example when women have to take time off work to care for sick children. Improving solid waste management has economic advantages in addition to the health advantages discussed above.

Consider the following example. It is said that a firm that throws something away pays towards it three times over. Imagine a firm that uses raw materials and puts them through a manufacturing process to make a final product.

First, the firm has to pay its suppliers for the raw materials. Secondly, it pays its staff to transform the raw materials into products, and pays for the water and energy that it uses. Finally, the firm has to pay for disposal of what it throws away. So a firm that reduces the amount of waste it produces makes savings in all three areas. A firm that uses basic materials such as glass or metal faces large energy bills for the processes required in converting these materials into products.

But if they follow the principles of the 3 Rs reduce, reuse and recycle and substitute some of their input raw material with scrap glass or metal, they can reduce their energy bills and buy less raw materials. There are further benefits from recycling.

The initial stages in the recycling process collecting material from households and businesses is labour-intensive and provides employment for the poorest people in society. A householder in an urban area goes shopping for food. How can they apply the 3 Rs when it comes to packaging materials? They can reduce packaging waste by buying loose fruit and vegetables rather than pre-packaged goods.

The can reuse carrier bags to take the shopping home rather than picking up new bags each time they shop. They can recycle by taking any glass or metal food containers to collection points or by giving them to people who earn their living by collecting recyclable wastes. You may think of it as your immediate surroundings in the town or kebele where you live or work.

However, it can also mean the wider natural world on a much larger, even global, scale. Poor sanitation and waste management have direct impacts on the local environment, but human practices can also have broader consequences.

There are obvious local environmental benefits from improved sanitation. This means that defecation only takes place in properly constructed latrines, areas of land are not contaminated with faeces and watercourses no longer act as sewers.

This in turn allows plant life, fish and other aquatic organisms to flourish. Improving waste management improves the local environment and also benefits the national and even the global environment. Good waste management means less litter in the streets and in the neighbourhood of waste disposal sites Figure 2. It also reduces the smell in the streets from decomposing wastes.

Applying the 3 Rs saves energy because the energy used to recycle metals, paper, glass, etc. Energy production is a major source of greenhouse gases. Greenhouse gases, such as carbon dioxide and methane, contribute to human-induced climate change that is causing the overall warming of the Earth and changing weather and rainfall patterns.

Recycling and reduction and reuse reduce the emissions of these gases. Improving the standards of landfills also reduces greenhouse gas emissions and lowers the risk of polluting local watercourses and the surrounding land.

Now that you have completed this study session, you can assess how well you have achieved its Learning Outcomes by answering these questions. Imagine that you are working with the mother of a two-year-old child. Use the F diagram Figure 2. As well as ensuring the family is using water that is safe to drink, the focus should be on reducing the potential for the child to come into contact with faeces directly and indirectly. These barriers could include:. How do good sanitation and waste management practices bring a positive effect to urban inhabitants?

Give examples for effects on:. Printable page generated Saturday, 13 Nov , Use 'Print preview' to check the number of pages and printer settings.