Comparing the Effect of Community Engagement on the Impact of Water Filter Usage

The United Nations (UN) has called access to safe drinking water a human right and the UN Sustainable Development Goals marked the year 2030 for all people worldwide to achieve this goal. Access to safe drinking water can be achieved by the global health community working together with communities. Community engagement is essential to achieve this goal, yet the features of community engagement that sustain public health initiatives, such as safe drinking water, are not well known. Based on a long-term international partnership, an interdisciplinary team of community and university partners will work with rural Guatemalan villages to determine how community engagement can influence the impact and use of household water filters on family health outcomes. We will use a quasi-experimental design using community-based participatory research principles to determine the effect of community engagement on the use and impact of table-top household water filters on family health. All families (N=40) who received a water filter through the Clean Water Collaborative Project in 2018 will be invited to participate. Household surveys will be conducted between May 20 and May 29, 2019 in three rural villages within the Department of Sacatepéquez, Guatemala. A community leader from Corazón de los Niños will accompany the two bilingual research team members to the homes of these families. A 10-item household survey about the use of the water filter, perceptions of the health benefits, and family health in the past year will be administered with participating families. This survey was used in the previous water filter study (Larson et al., 2016). Descriptive and correlational statistics will be used to a) evaluate use and impact of water filters on family health in three rural villages in Guatemala and b) compare use and impact of water filters on family health in three villages (n=40) with community collaboration to one village (n=56) without community collaboration. We will disseminate findings in a community forum in Guatemala May 2020 and through professional presentations and publications.