The effect of water and sanitation on child mortality in Egypt

Abstract

This paper assesses water and sanitation’s impacts on child mortality in Egypt. The analysis is conducted using a three-part model specification, comprising discrete choice to model the child prospects of dying during the neonatal period. The remaining parts uses transition models to model infant and childhood risk of death where unobserved heterogeneity is accounted for. The results show that access to municipal water decreases the risk and sanitation is found to have a more pronounced impact on mortality than water. The results suggest that increasing awareness of the Egyptian population relative to health care and hygiene is an important feature to decrease child’s mortality risk. Moreover, gender discrimination is found to be of an important effect beyond the neonatal period.