Page 60 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

Mbu Daniel Tambi , Peter Arung Etat: Implications of Access to Portable Water
For Child Health Production in Cameroon

Such knowledge would help reduced child death rate and inequality, increase
household asset endowment, increase maternal labour force participation as time is
redeem in going to stay with child in the hospital because of ill health, money is also
save which increases standards of living. To bridge this gap we have examined the
following objectives: explore the determinants of household source of drinking
water in Cameroon, verify the impact of household source of drinking water on child
Health outcomes in Cameroon and analyze the heterogeneous effects of child health
by child age. We used the IVPROBIT model to estimate our 2004/2011 Cameroon
DHS in STATA 13.0.

We observed that factors such as parent literacy, breast feeding mothers, male
household head; household social status, household size and urban residence are
strong determinants of household source of water. However, parent literacy, breast
feeding mothers, male household head are positively correlating with household
water supply while household social status especially non-poor households,
household size and urban residence are factors negatively correlating with water
source. We also observed that a marginal change in water supply will result to a
corresponding increase in child health of 1.5 percent. The other factors positively
associated with child health increase due to water effects include: household size,
urban household residence, while factors negatively associated with child health are;
mothers currently employed in the job market, breast feeding children, fertility rate,
mother attended prenatal services while pregnant, literacy rate, child age in years,
household size square and non -poor parent. The health of child age 24 and 36
months is strongly affected by source of water supply. 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.

In terms of policy, we recommend that decision makers in Cameroon through the
ministry of public health should intensive child-water hygienic campaigns, while the
government strategizing to increase the supply of good drinking water following the
WHO standards. This is a major step towards economic growth and poverty reduction
in the different regions under public health and increase well-being of households.

Declaration of no Conflicting Interest
We declared that there is no conflicting interest in this article

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