Page 59 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

THE JOURNAL OF ECONOMIC SCIENCES: THEORY AND PRACTICE, V.78, # 2, 2021, pp. 43-62

The health of child age 2 and 3 years old is strongly affected by source of drinking
water supply. Children of age two and three years old are difficultly controlled in
rural Cameroon due to the nature of the environment and excitement on the part of
the children to exercise their leg muscles in walking. It’s widely observed that
children attempting to walk really create much time to do it, given therefore the dirty
and unsecure environment; the children can easily contract diseases roaming the
environment either in drinking water or just standing water.

Most typical villages in Cameroon have earth floor that are usually characterize by
dust, at times muddy in the rainy season, rough food particles, insect infested
(termites, ants, house-fly) also water is constantly used to wet the floor to reduce the
quantity of dust. All these create a favourable condition for insect growth and so
affecting the health of the children 24 to 36 months old.

Other factors positively affecting children’s health of age 24 to 36 months are
household size and place of residence while factors negatively correlating with child
health of age 24 to 36 months are: breast feeding mothers, mother currently working
in the job market, prenatal care, birth interval, literacy and social status of the
family. Child age 4 years and above is not affected by water supply. This result
sound ambiguous, however, the reality in Cameroon holds that child age four is the
school going age, most parents at that child’s age begins treating the child as
themselves or full functioning human being such that what they eat and drink is
what the child eats and drink. In such an age children begin to learn even at school
the importance and necessity of good drinking water. In most nursery and primary
schools in Cameroon, the subject of hygiene especially drinking water is the centre
of lectures /class notes being verbal or written, hence as tender the children might
be, they begins to exercise some caution in what they drink or eat in both in and out
of home. The result of this section is presented in table 3.

6. CONCLUSION
Understanding the intricacies underlining the effects of household source of water
on child health outcomes as well as other factors determining child health in an era
of high infant death rate especially in a developing country like Cameroon is critical
for public policy and debate that highlight infant survival rates to be grounded by
evidence-based research. These issues are particularly useful in the context of
economic growth and poverty reduction in the different regions under public health
and increase well-being of households.

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