Water and health: What will YOUR Monday morning look like?

Oct 06, 2010

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Two weeks ago, the critical importance of access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) was discussed in several high-visibility forums.

Melinda French Gates specifically targeted sanitation as one of the primary ways to improve health during her TEDxChange talk, which was held prior to the MDG Summit in New York. During the Summit, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the President of Liberia Ellen Johnson-Sirleaf called for immediate action on water and sanitation.

Although access to safe water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) is usually recognized as an essential foundation for better health, research underway at The Water Institute at University of North Carolina (UNC) confirms that the health and WaSH sectors could do far more to integrate services. As a result, workers in both sectors miss opportunities every day to reduce the disease burden from lack of access to safe WaSH. Furthermore, health professionals can support investments in other sectors with the added benefit of potential health gains. In these times of increasingly scarce resources, the health and WaSH sectors have the opportunity to achieve mutual benefits through working together.

That is why we are pleased to convene an inter-sectoral discussion between the health and WaSH sectors during The Water Institute at UNC's upcoming workshop Integration of WaSH and Health Systems - What can we do on Monday morning? This workshop will be held during the pre-conference networking weekend as part of the upcoming Water and Health: Where Science Meets Policy conference at UNC-Chapel Hill on October 25-26. Co-conveners of the workshop include IntraHealth, PATH, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and WaterAid. Speakers from around the globe will present local and international case studies to provide examples of how health and watsan sector professionals can strive to accelerate access to improved WaSH and secure related health gains. Attendees will discuss and brainstorm ideas and achievable actions - steps that each of us can do “on Monday morning” to promote integration of health and WaSH. Watch this space for a report out from the session.

By working together, we can defeat diarrhea while also increasing access to sanitation and water. Simple solutions, exponential benefits.

 

-- Jennifer Platt is a doctoral student at the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health