Socio-demographic and water handling practices affecting quality of household drinking water in Kisii Town, Kisii County, Kenya

Household drinking water quality is dependent on a number of determinants which could be arising at the source, during transportation or due to storage and handling practices. The challenge of unsafe water is even big in urban settings that are often characterized by exponential population growth, increased urbanization, industrialization and poor sanitary facilities. Contaminated water is a leading cause of water borne diseases which are a major public health and policy makers concern. In fact, Water borne diseases are third cause of mortality in Kenya whereas they are ranked second in Kisii. The study was designed to investigate the factors affecting household drinking water quality in Kisii Town that has four main zones which include: Mwembe, Jogoo, Nyanchwa and CBD. Demographics, level of awareness in terms of water quality as well as hygiene and sanitation practices of the study population were studied using questionnaires. The questionnaires were filled by interviewing household heads from 422 sampled households. Qualitative data was also obtained by use of Focused group discussions (FGDs). Perspectives of key people such as public health officers were acquired through Key informant interviews (KIIs). The study found a significant relationship between household size and water quality in terms of presence of total coliforms. The following hygiene and sanitation factors were found to be having significant relationship with presence of E. coli in household drinking water; source of water (p = 0.002), transportation container (p = 0.029), covering during transportation (p = 0.012), storage container (p < 0.001), method of drawing from storage container (p < 0.001), feces disposal (p = 0.001) and garbage disposal method (p = 0.04). The conclusion of this study is that good hygiene and sanitation practices are important in ensuring total safety of drinking water at the point of use. There is therefore need for more capacity building in this region to ensure that people do not consume contaminated water which is a major contributing factor to water-borne diseases.