What do Indian children drink when they do not receive water? : statistical analysis of water and alternative beverage consumption from the 2005-2006 Indian National Family Health Survey

Fledderjohann, Jasmine and Doyle, Pat and Campbell, Oona and Ebrahim, Shah and Basu, Sanjay and Stuckler, David (2015) What do Indian children drink when they do not receive water? : statistical analysis of water and alternative beverage consumption from the 2005-2006 Indian National Family Health Survey. BMC Public Health, 15: 612. ISSN 1471-2458

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Abstract

BACKGROUND: Over 1.2 billion people lack access to clean water. However, little is known about what children drink when there is no clean water. We investigated the prevalence of receiving no water and what Indian children drink instead. METHODS: We analysed children's beverage consumption using representative data from India's National Family and Health Survey (NFHS-3, 2005-2006). Consumption was based on mothers' reports (n = 22,668) for children aged 6-59 months (n = 30,656). RESULTS: About 10 % of Indian children had no water in the last 24 h, corresponding to 12,700,000 children nationally, (95 % CI: 12,260,000 to 13,200,000). Among children who received no water, 23 % received breast or fresh milk and 24 % consumed formula, "other liquid", juice, or two or more beverages. Children over 2 were more likely to consume non-milk beverages, including tea, coffee, and juice than those under 2 years. Those in the lowest two wealth quintiles were 16 % less likely to have received water (OR = 0.84; 95 % CI: 0.74 to 0.96). Compared to those living in households with bottled, piped, or tanker water, children were significantly less likely to receive water in households using well water (OR = 0.75; 95 % CI: 0.64 to 0.89) or river, spring, or rain water (OR =0.70; 95 % CI: 0.53 to 0.92) in the last 24 h. CONCLUSIONS: About 13 million Indian children aged 6-59 months received no water in the last 24 h. Further research is needed to assess the risks potentially arising from insufficient water, caffeinated beverages, and high sugar drinks at early stages of life.

Item Type:
Journal Article
Journal or Publication Title:
BMC Public Health
Additional Information:
© 2015 Fledderjohann et al. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly credited. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated.
Uncontrolled Keywords:
/dk/atira/pure/subjectarea/asjc/2700/2739
Subjects:
?? animalsbeverageschilddrinking waterfamily healthfemalefruit and vegetable juiceshealth surveyshumansindiainfantmalemilkmilk, humanjournal articlepublic health, environmental and occupational health ??
ID Code:
83892
Deposited By:
Deposited On:
09 Jan 2017 14:50
Refereed?:
Yes
Published?:
Published
Last Modified:
31 Dec 2023 00:45