Abstract
Background: This study contributes to the body of knowledge about the causes and consequences of household water insecurity. Specifically, we will identify to what extent select contextual environmental factors are associated with psychosocial components of water insecurity at seven different sites in Sub-Saharan Africa. Leveraging spatiotemporal analyses of the select environmental variables, household water insecurity experiences, we will test the hypothesis that regional-scale climate change/weather anomalies will be associated with household-level perceived stress and worry due to water insecurity.
Methods: Our analyses use HWISE (Household Water Insecurity Experiences) survey data and satellite/ground-based observational environmental change data. This study generated descriptive statistics for the socio-demographic characteristics, stratified by household experienced water related stress, worry, and conflict. Hierarchal linear models were used to assess the association between varied environmental factors and the psychosocial components of water insecurity. Data were analyzed in ArcGIS Pro and R.
Results: Our results suggests that certain household-level independent variables, such as monthly income and socioeconomic status, had a significant association with stress and worry levels within households, at all spatial scales. The associations between the contextual environmental data and psychosocial components were not significant throughout the varied scales in this study.
Conclusion: This study illuminates that more research is needed at the household level scale to better understand the complicated and ever-evolving relationship between climate change, water insecurity, and its impact on mental health, which will become increasingly important as natural resources like water become scarcer due to the natural and anthropogenic degradation.