IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/ags/bdbjaf/200323.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Arsenic Contamination And Human Health: A Socioeconomic Study In Some Selected Areas Of Bangladesh

Author

Listed:
  • Jaim, W. M. H.
  • Hossain, Mahabub

Abstract

Arsenic contamination of groundwater is a case of mass poisoning in Bangladesh. In order to examine the nature and extent of the problem, household survey was conducted in both arsenic contaminated and non-contaminated areas. The selected arsenic `hot spots' were Faridpur and Lakshimpur while the arsenic free area was Gazipur. One village from each of the three locations was purposively selected and the number of households considered as samples was 250. The analysis showed that severity of arsenic related diseases was more acute in the poor village of Lakshimpur area (where about 50% of the household members were suffering from arsenic related skin diseases) compared to Faridpur while in Gazipur there was no case of any patient suffering from arsenic related diseases. Further, the impact of arsenic problem was found to be extended from immediate health effect to extensive social and economic hardship especially for the poor. On the other hand, access to health care facilities as well as access to save drinking water and even access to information about arsenic mitigation programs were seriously lacking particularly in Lakshimpur. Special attention from the Government, private and NGOs is needed to meet the urgent need of supplying arsenic free water to save lives of the millions of people living in the arsenic contaminated areas of Bangladesh.

Suggested Citation

  • Jaim, W. M. H. & Hossain, Mahabub, 2007. "Arsenic Contamination And Human Health: A Socioeconomic Study In Some Selected Areas Of Bangladesh," Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, vol. 30(1), pages 1-11, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:ags:bdbjaf:200323
    DOI: 10.22004/ag.econ.200323
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://ageconsearch.umn.edu/record/200323/files/Resear_02%20Vol-XXX_2.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.22004/ag.econ.200323?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Alam, M. Shahe & Islam, M. A., 2011. "Assessing The Effect Of Arsenic Contamination On Modern Rice Production: Evidences From A Farm Level Study," Bangladesh Journal of Agricultural Economics, Bangladesh Agricultural University, vol. 34(1-2), pages 15-28, December.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ags:bdbjaf:200323. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: AgEcon Search (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/febaubd.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.