Access to clean drinking water remains one of the world’s most pressing public health challenges, with more than 2 billion people around the world left without clean water to drink. Only 14 percent of rural households in low- and middle-income countries enjoy tap water in their homes; and even when the piping does exist, it is often just as contaminated as local ground- and surface-water sources. A new study uncovers an inexpensive, effective and simple solution: home delivery of clean water.
Harris School of Public Policy Assistant Professors Fiona Burlig and Amir Jina, along with EPIC Non-Resident Scholar Anant Sudarshan, tested the effectiveness of clean water delivery. They found that, at very low prices, about 90 percent of households chose to order the clean water. But, as the price increased, fewer households would (or perhaps could) pay for it. And, instead of just buying a small amount of clean water, they stopped buying it entirely—signaling that households believe that clean water only benefits their health if it is their main source of drinking water. The researchers found that clean water deliveries reduced illness reported by the household by up to 62 percent, and absences from work similarly decreased.
The study also measured how cost-effective the clean water delivery was, especially in comparison to another policy: providing households with chlorine to treat their own water. The researchers found both interventions to be cost effective. The cost per life year saved with the home-delivered water was only $71 to $226, on par with some of the most cost-effective public health interventions. For chlorine tablets it is $33 to $106 per life year. But the clean water delivery had a much higher take-up rate—with a take-up of about 90 percent for the clean water delivery versus about 36 percent for the chlorine tablets—making clean water delivery more effective overall, and an important addition to our toolkit for solving the clean water access problem.