The effect of poor sanitation on the health of people in slum areas a case study of Katanga region, Kampala district, Uganda.

Abstract

The objective of the study was to find out the effects of poor sanitation on the health of people living in slum areas, specifically the Katanga slum of Kampala. The study sample size was determined using Cochran formula (1963) and primary data was collected from 96 households in the Katanga slum. Using Univariate analysis, indicated that most of the people interviewed were female with a percentage of 68.1%. The results further depicted that majority of the residents in Katanga used unclean water with a percentage of 58.6% due to negligence of the people taking water from open wells to be safe for domestic purposes. The percentage of those who failed to access defecation facilities at the point of need was 66.4%, at night some respondents confessed use of buckets as their defecation facility and disposal of them later early in the morning always not necessarily in the defecation facility, in addition, 50.0% of the households practice open disposal of waste. This portrays a large percentage of households with poor health status in the previous two weeks with a percentage of 75.0%. For the bivariate analysis using the Chi-square test, open defecation, use of unclean water, and poor disposal of wastes have a significant negative impact on the health of people since their p-values are less than the standard p-value of 0.05. For the multivariate analysis using logistic regression, it indicated that the people, who disposed of wastes in the open, were 6 times more likely to be unhealthy as compared to those who paid garbage collecting companies. Those who collected rubbish in the sacks, were 4 times more likely to be unhealthy as compared to those who used companies for collecting the rubbish, and those who burned the rubbish were 0.6 times less likely to be unhealthy as compared to those who paid to garbage collecting companies. Those who burnt rubbish were 0.607 less likely to be unhealthy as compared to those who paid companies to collect the rubbish; this was simply because there were delays in the collection of this rubbish. Furthermore, the results indicated that people who practiced open defecation were 4 times more likely to be unhealthy as compared to those who did not. And those who used unclean water were 2 times more likely to be unhealthy.