Assessment of drinking water quality, related health impacts and accessibility to public health curative services among slum dwellers in Dehradun city of Uttarakhand, India.

Abstract

The child population in slums of Dehradun city is at significant risk of water borne diseases. Thus study aimed to assess the bacteriological quality of drinking water during pre and post monsoon months for five different slum locations of Dehradun city and water related diseases affecting the child population of 0-5 years of age during the post monsoon month. Also perception study of slum dwellers has been carried out regarding accessibility to publichealth care services and various barriers to it. In total 30 drinking water samples from point of use were collected from five slums during the months of May and August and bacteriological analysis was done using standard methods. Health related information based on prevalence rate of water borne diseases was gathered through pre-designed survey questionnaires. Results showed that all water samples were found highly contaminated during post monsoon month with mean values of Total Coliform at 1129.52±970.28count/100 mL and E.coliat 22.37±11.74 count/100 mL respectively. The point prevalence rate of Diarrhea among all children was found to be highest i.e. 45 percent out of five diseases. In addition, total cases of child population affected by water relateddiseases was found negatively correlated with various social and environmental factors. Public health care services for the medical treatment was only preferred by 26 percent of slum dwellers due to existence of various barriers.