title: Health impact caused by poor water and sanitation in district Abbottabad.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Large proportions of people still do not have excess to safe drinking water and proper sanitation.
  
  
  METHODS
  Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to assess the health impacts. Random households were selected. Information was collected from questionnaire through interview schedule method, group discussion and observation checklist.
  
  
  RESULTS
  People rated water and sanitation condition in urban as: 10% very good, 27% good, 20% bad, 43% very bad, and none of them said we don't know While in rural areas they rated 10% very good, 36% good, 44% bad, 6% very bad, and 4% of them said we don't know. Water sources in selected urban and rural areas were different. 37% in urban and 68% in rural area depended on bore wells as water source, 22% depended on hand pumps. In urban areas, the disease ratio was typhoid 20%, hepatitis 13%, diarrhoea 27%, skin infection 23%, stomach problems 53% and allergies 33%. In rural areas, after stomach problems, diarrhoea, hepatitis and typhoid ratio was very high as compared to urban area. In rural community, 70% were unaware of poor water and sanitation consequences on health.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  The water and sanitation condition in urban as well as in rural community is poor but in rural community it is even worse The drinking water was contaminated with E. coli, Enterobacter, Salmonella and Clostridium. This observation was correlated with prevalence of many water born diseases especially in rural communities of Abbottabad.
authors: Department of Environmental Sciences, COMSATS Institute of Information Technology, Abbottabad, Pakistan.
authors: Sadia
authors: S
authors: Jabeen
authors: Qaisar
authors: Q
authors: Mahmood
authors: Sumbal
authors: S
authors: Tariq
authors: Bahadar
authors: B
authors: Nawab
authors: Noor
authors: N
authors: Elahi
mesh_terms: D060766:Drinking Water / Q000382:microbiology*; D006304:Health Status; D006801:Humans; D010154:Pakistan; D012424:Rural Population; D012498:Sanitary Engineering; D012499:Sanitation; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D014505:Urban Population
chemical_list: D060766:Drinking Water