Effects of water shortage on the health of women at Mpheni Village, Vhembe District

Abstract

Water shortage is a situation wherein there is inadequate, unreliable and unaffordable water for a healthy life. Two third of the world’s women do not have access to safe and clean water. Water shortage is caused by droughts, poor water supply, contamination of available water and lack of investment in water. Women experienced fear, sexual assault, anxiety, shame, injury, tiredness and suffered from waterborne diseases due to water shortage. Therefore, this study sought to determine the relationship between health effects and water shortage among women at Mpheni Village, Vhembe District. A cross-sectional survey with a descriptive quantitative research design was used. Simple random sampling was used to sample 173 respondents from Vhutuwangadzebu section in Mpheni Village. Face validity and content validity was considered in this study. The test-retest method was used to determine the reliability of the instrument. Questionnaires with closed-ended and open-ended questions were used to collect data. Data analysis was done using SPSS version 25.0. Chi-square test was used to determine the relationship between water shortage and physical health effects, as well as the psychosocial health effects. The significance level was fixed at P≤0.05, meaning that any value which was equal to/or less than 0.05 was regarded to have a relationship, while any value above 0.05 was regarded as not having the relationship. The results of this study showed that majority 167(96.5%) women suffered from water shortage. Additionaly, the results showed that nearly half 84(48.6%) women felt very tired after collecting water. However, there was no significant relationship (P=0.943) between tiredness and water shortage. There was a very strong significant relationship (P= 0.000) between water shortage and psychosocial health in that 125(72.3%) women felt unsafe when collecting water. There should be investment in the development of boreholes. To prevent both physical and psychosocial health effects of water shortage the local government should not only deal with how safe the water is but also on stable water distribution systems. This study should be further investigated especially on vulnerable persons like pregnant women and children.