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Research project

OneHealthWater

Project overview

This project aimed to develop evidence concerning the risks of disease transmission from livestock to people via water through fieldwork in rural Siaya county, Kenya, so as to find ways of disrupting this transmission. The project was a collaboration between Southampton, the Kenya Medical Research Institute, VIRED International, and University of Brighton, exploring various avenues to generating evidence on this issue. One approach was through rural communities mapping and ranking water points and hazards in their environment, which revealed that the communities greatly valued rainwater harvesting, even above piped water. A second approach, assessing microbiological contamination of water stored in the home, revealed observed poultry and goat-keeping as risk factors for contamination. We also tracked cattle using GPS collars, but found that seasons of high diarrhoea risk did not coincide with times when cattle were often near people's water points or homes. Finally, we found that when looking for contamination hazards near water sources so as to tackle such contamination risks, there were some hazards that surveyors struggled to identify consistency. These findings all add to the evidence base on water contamination risks from livestock and their management.

Staff

Lead researcher

Professor Jim Wright

Professor in GIS & Int Development

Research interests

  • Safe water access and public health in Sub-Saharan Africa
  • Environmental applications of GIS
  • Geospatial analysis for public health, particularly via routine health management information systems

Collaborating research institutes, centres and groups

Population, Health and Wellbeing (PHeW)

We combine expertise in population, health and wellbeing with the application of technical excellence in geographic information systems (GIS), spatial analysis and qualitative methods.

Research outputs

Modelling seasonal household variation in harvested rainwater availability: a case study in Siaya County, Kenya
Weiyu Yu,
Peggy Wanza,
Emmah Kwoba,
Thumbi Mwangi,
Joseph Okotto-Okotto,
D. Gomes da Silva,
& Jim Wright
, 2023 , NPJ Clean Water , 6 (1)
DOI: 10.1038/s41545-023-00247-9
Type: article
A spatiotemporal analysis of cattle herd movement in relation to drinking-water sources: implications for Cryptosporidium control in rural Kenya
Jessica Floyd,
Emmah Kwoba,
Samuel Thumbi,
Joseph Okotto-Okotto,
Peggy Wanza,
Nicola A Wardrop,
Weiyu Yu,
& Jim Wright
, 2022 , Environmental Science and Pollution Research , 29 (23) , 34314--34324
DOI: 10.1007/s11356-021-17888-3
Type: article
A mixed methods study to evaluate participatory mapping for rural water safety planning in western Kenya
Joseph Okotto-Okotto,
Weiyu Yu,
Emmah Kwoba,
Samuel Thumbi,
L.G. Okotto,
Peggy Wanza,
D. Gomes da Silva,
& Jim Wright
, 2021 , PLoS ONE , 16 (7) , e0255286
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0255286
Type: article
A longitudinal study of the association between domestic contact with livestock and contamination of household Point-of-Use stored drinking water in rural Siaya County (Kenya)
Diogo Gomes da Silva,
James Ebdon,
Joseph Okotto-Okotto,
Frederick Ade,
Oscar Mito,
Peggy Wanza,
Emmah Kwoba,
Thumbi Mwangi,
Weiyu Yu,
& James Wright
, 2020 , International Journal of Hygiene and Environmental Health , 230
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijheh.2020.113602
Type: article
Effect of inter-observer variation on the association between contamination hazards and the microbiological quality of water sources: A longitudinal study
Joseph Okotto-Okotto,
D. Gomes da Silva,
Emmah Kwoba,
Samuel Thumbi,
Peggy Wanza,
Weiyu Yu,
& Jim Wright
, 2020 , International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health , 17 (24) , 1--15
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph17249192
Type: article
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