Water, Sanitation, Hygiene and Covid-19 pandemic: a global socioeconomic analysis

  1. Ajishnu Roy
  2. Aman Basu
  3. Kousik Pramanick

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Abstract

Socioeconomic achievement of WASH (access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene) services are being acknowledged as anticipatory actors, indispensable in safeguarding health during this Covid-19 pandemic. However, on a global scale, it is currently not clear whether deprivation or non-obtainability of which of the various WASH services are closely related to Covid-19 dynamics and up to which degree. We have analysed data (March - June 2020) related to five Covid-19 indicators for most of the countries in the world with indicators of safe water, sanitation and hygiene to understand this. We have found a strong positive correlation between lesser effects of Covid-19 and better access to safe water, sanitation as well as hygiene throughout this time for most of the indicators. However, some indicators show the opposite nature of the relationship, for which we have given probable explanation accordingly. The hypothesis of an inversely proportional association between Covid-19 and poor WASH facilities on a global scale is confirmed in this study. We propose that this study should be perceived as an expanded comprehensive view on the complexities of WaSH-Covid19 interrelationships, which could help to shape an agenda for research into some unanswered questions.

Highlights

  • WASH indicators are highly correlated to cumulative indicators of Covid-19.

  • Trends of this correlation have been changing from March-June, 2020.

  • Income groups and geographic locations have no distinguishing effects on countries.

  • Better WASH performance does not always correlate against Covid-19.

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  1. Version published to 10.1101/2020.08.11.20173179v2 on medRxiv
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    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.08.11.20173179: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    NIH rigor criteria are not applicable to paper type.

    Table 2: Resources

    No key resources detected.

    Results from OddPub: We did not detect open data. We also did not detect open code. Researchers are encouraged to share open data when possible (see Nature blog).

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: An explicit section about the limitations of the techniques employed in this study was not found. We encourage authors to address study limitations.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

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    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
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    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

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  3. Version published to 10.1101/2020.08.11.20173179v1 on medRxiv