Access to drinking water and basic sanitation is a fundamental need and a human right vital for the dignity and health of all people. The health and economic benefits of improved sanitation facilities to households and individuals are well documented. Use of an improved sanitation facility is a proxy for the use of basic sanitation.
Definition:
The percentage of population using an improved sanitation facility.
An improved sanitation facility is one that likely hygienically separates human excreta from human contact. Improved sanitation facilities include:
- Flush or pour-flush to piped sewer system, septic tank or pit latrine,
- Ventilated improved pit latrine,
- Pit latrine with slab and
- Composting toilet
However, sanitation facilities are not considered improved when shared with other households, or open to public use.
While, unimproved sanitation include:
- Flush or pour-flush to elsewhere,
- Pit latrine without slab or open pit,
- Bucket, hanging toilet or hanging latrine and
- No facilities or bush or field (open defecation)
(WHO & UNICEF, 2010.)
Disaggregation:
Location (urban/rural)
Method of measurement
The indicator is computed as the ratio of the number of people who use an improved sanitation facility, urban and rural, expressed as a percentage.
The percentage of total population using an improved sanitation facility is the population weighted average of the previous two numbers.
The use of drinking water sources and sanitation facilities is part of the wealth-index used by household surveys to divide the population into wealth quintiles. As a result, most nationally representative household surveys include information about water and sanitation. These include Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), Multiple Indicator Cluster Surveys (MICS), World Health Surveys, Living Standards Measurement Surveys, Core Welfare Indicator Questionnaires, Health and Nutrition Surveys, Household Budget Surveys, Pan Arab Project for Family Health Surveys and Reproductive Health Surveys and many other nationally representative household surveys.
The survey questions and response categories pertaining to access to sanitation are fully harmonized between MICS and DHS, which is adopted from the standard questionnaire promoted for inclusion into survey instruments by the WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme on Water Supply and Sanitation (JMP). This can be accessed through www.wssinfo.org .
M&E Framework:
Outcome
Method of estimation:
For each country, the WHO & UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) for Water Supply and Sanitation produces estimates by fitting a regression line to a series of data points from household surveys and censuses. Simple linear regression is used to estimate the proportion of the population using the following sanitation facilities:
- Improved types of sanitation (including shared facilities of an improved type)
- Open defecation
The remaining population uses unimproved unimproved sanitation facilities.
Separate regressions are used for urban and rural areas with respective populations added to generate consistent national, regional and global estimates.
The percentage of the population that shares a sanitation facility of an otherwise improved type is subtracted from the trend estimates of improved sanitation facilities. This is derived from the average of data from household surveys or censuses with such a ratio. For a small number of countries, one or two datapoints are available for a short timespan; in such cases an average value is used.
The most recent household survey or census available for most countries was typically conducted two to six years ago.
As in previous reports, the JMP extends the regression line by at most two years to provide estimates that can be compared for a single year. Beyond this point the estimates remain unchanged for up to four years unless coverage is below 5 per cent or above 95 per cent, in which case the line is extended indefinitely.
Predominant type of statistics: adjusted and predicte
Method of estimation of global and regional aggregates:
Regional estimates are weighted averages of the country data, using the number of population for the reference year in each country as the weight. No figures are reported if less than 50 per cent of the population in the region are covered.
If you have any feedback, you are welcome to write it here.
If you need to access the old Global Health Observatory data, you can do it here. But before you leave, please provide us your feedback about our new data portal.
