Water Water Everywhere, Not a Drop to Drink? Information & Enabling Access to Clean Water in India

Arsenic consumption through water sources can lead to advertise pregnancy outcomes or fatalities. Children are susceptible to arsenic due to lower immunity levels and higher proportion of body water compared to adults. Evidence also suggests that arsenic can have in utero health impacts. Building on a pilot study, funded through a previous round of funding under the Indian Scholars Program which sought to understand constraints in access of arsenic-free households, this endline survey of a full-scale randomised evaluation measures health outcomes using administrative data as well as survey data.

The cluster randomised evaluation was administered in the Jorhat district of Assam, in collaboration with the Department of Health and Family Welfare, Assam, the National Health Mission Assam, and the Public Health Engineering Department. Villages in Jorhat were randomly assigned to receive (a) information campaign on arsenic contamination and alternative safe water sources, and (b) awareness campagins combined with actual measures to facilitate access to safe water under the Jal Jeevan Mission. The households who took part in the study were randomly sampled using administrative data on rural public health workers to target households with pregnant women. The researchers aim to identify a gap in the uptake of the scheme to inform improvements in the scheme and how it is disseminated to address constraints faced by households in accessing arsenic-free water.