IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pone00/0276186.html

Water treatment at the point-of-use and treatment preferences among households in Ethiopia: A contemporaneous systematic review and meta-analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Aiggan Tamene
  • Aklilu Habte
  • Demelash Woldeyohannes
  • Habtamu Tamrat
  • Fitsum Endale
  • Tekle Eajo
  • Abel Afework

Abstract

Background: Water is essential for maintaining human life, health, and dignity. Untreated water consumption causes 1.8 million deaths annually, over 99.8% of which happen in developing nations and 90% of which include children. Point-of-use water treatment enables people without reliable access to safe drinking water to reduce contamination and minimize microbial risk levels. This Systematic Review and Meta-analysis was, therefore, used to identify, select, and critically appraise relevant evidence about water treatment practices and their associated factors among Ethiopian households. Methods: PubMed, Science Direct, Web of Science, Scopus, Embase, Google Scholar, ProQuest, and other databases were searched for studies published before May 5, 2022. The final synthesis included twelve investigations. Microsoft Excel was used to extract the data, and STATA 16 was used for the analysis. The Joanna Briggs Institute’s Critical assessment checklist for prevalence studies was used to evaluate the quality of the included studies. Egger’s test and funnel plot were used to assess publication bias. I2 statistics were calculated to check for study heterogeneity. The DerSimonian and Laird random-effects model was used to analyze the pooled effect size, odds ratios, and 95% confidence intervals across studies. Analysis of subgroups was done by publication year and geographic region. Results: Of the 550 identified articles, 12 studies were eligible for analysis (n = 4849 participants). The pooled prevalence estimate of point-of-use water treatment practice among Ethiopian homes was 36.07% (95% CI: 21.94–50.19, I2 = 99.5%). Receiving training from Community health workers (OR, 1.7; 95% CI: 1.33–2.08), female headship (OR, 2.52; 95% CI: 1.60–3.44), and household wealth (OR, 1.6; 95% CI: 1.19–2.16) were significantly associated with point-of-use water treatment practice. Conclusion: Despite the absence of safely managed water sources, very few homes routinely treated their drinking water. Adoption of water treatment practices necessitates ongoing communication and assistance from health extension personnel. Moreover, program planners must be aware of the many user categories that households may fall under to guarantee that ongoing training messages and treatment products reach every home.

Suggested Citation

  • Aiggan Tamene & Aklilu Habte & Demelash Woldeyohannes & Habtamu Tamrat & Fitsum Endale & Tekle Eajo & Abel Afework, 2022. "Water treatment at the point-of-use and treatment preferences among households in Ethiopia: A contemporaneous systematic review and meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 17(10), pages 1-16, October.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pone00:0276186
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0276186
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276186
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0276186&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pone.0276186?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
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. P. B. Anand, 2007. "Right to water and access to water: an assessment," Journal of International Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 19(4), pages 511-526.
    2. Matthew Goff & Ben Crow, 2014. "What is water equity? The unfortunate consequences of a global focus on 'drinking water'," Water International, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 39(2), pages 159-171, March.
    3. Anand, P B, 2007. "Right to water and access to water," MPRA Paper 47437, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Oginni, Ayodeji & Ahonsi, Babatunde & Ukwuije, Francis, 2013. "Are female-headed households typically poorer than male-headed households in Nigeria?," Journal of Behavioral and Experimental Economics (formerly The Journal of Socio-Economics), Elsevier, vol. 45(C), pages 132-137.
    5. Amrita Ahuja & Michael Kremer & Alix Peterson Zwane, 2010. "Providing Safe Water: Evidence from Randomized Evaluations," Annual Review of Resource Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 2(1), pages 237-256, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Norbert Brunner & Vijay Mishra & Ponnusamy Sakthivel & Markus Starkl & Christof Tschohl, 2015. "The Human Right to Water in Law and Implementation," Laws, MDPI, vol. 4(3), pages 1-59, August.
    2. Okukpon Irekpitan & Anozie Ijeoma, 2018. "Justifying Water Rights in Nigeria: Fiction or Achievable Panacea?," The Law and Development Review, De Gruyter, vol. 11(2), pages 757-800, December.
    3. Marek Hudon, 2009. "Should Access to Credit be a Right?," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 84(1), pages 17-28, January.
    4. Jennis J. BISER & Jeffrey A. EDWARDS, 2012. "Civil Liberties and Access to Water: Analysis of 193 Countries," Applied Econometrics and International Development, Euro-American Association of Economic Development, vol. 12(1).
    5. Mader, Philip, 2011. "Making the poor pay for public goods via microfinance: Economic and political pitfalls in the case of water and sanitation," MPIfG Discussion Paper 11/14, Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies.
    6. Juan Francisco Casero-Cepeda & Dani Catalá-Pérez & Antonio Cano-Orellana, 2022. "Design and Application of a Citizen Participation Tool to Improve Public Management of Drought Situations," Land, MDPI, vol. 11(10), pages 1-11, October.
    7. Brown, Joe & Hamoudi, Amar & Jeuland, Marc & Turrini, Gina, 2017. "Seeing, believing, and behaving: Heterogeneous effects of an information intervention on household water treatment," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 141-159.
    8. Cook, Joseph & Kabubo-Mariara, Jane & Kimuyu, Peter, 2021. "The Short-Run Impacts of Reducing Water Collection Times on Time Use, Well-Being and Education in Rural Kenya," EfD Discussion Paper 21-9, Environment for Development, University of Gothenburg.
    9. Priscila Neves-Silva & Juliana Aurora de Oliveira Lopes & Léo Heller, 2020. "The right to water: Impact on the quality of life of rural workers in a settlement of the Landless Workers Movement, Brazil," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(7), pages 1-13, July.
    10. Martín Rossi & Giulia Buccione, 2023. "Familiar Taste, Safer Choices: Sensory Heuristics and the Adoption of Clean Water," Working Papers 167, Universidad de San Andres, Departamento de Economia, revised Oct 2025.
    11. Johannes Haushofer & Michael Kremer & Ricardo Maertens & Brandon Joel Tan, 2021. "Water Treatment and Child Mortality: Evidence from Kenya," NBER Working Papers 29447, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Jessoe, Katrina, 2013. "Improved source, improved quality? Demand for drinking water quality in rural India," Journal of Environmental Economics and Management, Elsevier, vol. 66(3), pages 460-475.
    13. Boakye-Ansah, Akosua Sarpong & Schwartz, Klaas & Zwarteveen, Margreet, 2020. "Aligning stakeholder interests: How ‘appropriate’ technologies have become the accepted water infrastructure solutions for low-income areas," Utilities Policy, Elsevier, vol. 66(C).
    14. Yawo A. Noglo & Komivi Afawubo, 2017. "2011-2015: an illustration based on the decomposition of the Gini coefficient using the Shapley value approach," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 37(4), pages 2602-2615.
    15. Bauchet, Jonathan & Morduch, Jonathan, 2019. "Paying in pieces: A natural experiment on demand for life insurance under different payment schemes," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 139(C), pages 69-77.
    16. C. J. Higgs & T. R. Hill & R. Meissner, 2025. "Equity in water resource management: A theoretical dynamism," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(3), pages 2736-2752, August.
    17. Schady, Norbert, 2015. "Does Access to Better Water and Sanitation Infrastructure Improve Child Outcomes? Evidence from Latin America and the Caribbean," IDB Publications (Working Papers) 7369, Inter-American Development Bank.
    18. Zachary P. Sugg, 2018. "An Equity Autopsy: Exploring the Role of Water Rights in Water Allocations and Impacts for the Central Valley Project during the 2012–2016 California Drought," Resources, MDPI, vol. 7(1), pages 1-22, February.
    19. Raphaëlle Ducrot & Magalie Bourblanc, 2017. "Promoting equity in water access: the limits of fairness of a rural water programme in semi‐arid Mozambique," Natural Resources Forum, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(3), pages 131-144, August.
    20. Cyan, Musharraf R. & Kasim, M. Taha, 2023. "Awareness campaign to improve hygiene practices: Evidence from a randomized controlled trial in the tribal areas of Pakistan," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 233(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:plo:pone00:0276186. 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.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with 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: plosone (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/ .

    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.