Collaborative Research: Multiscalar Approaches to Understanding Syndemic Water Insecurity

University Of North Carolina Greensboro, Greensboro NC

Investigators

Abstract

Water insecurity interacts with food and sanitation insecurity in affecting psycho-emotional and physical health. Although significant evidence attests to these relationships, how these effects manifest across multiple measures and domains remains unresolved. Investigations of both qualitative lived experience and quantitative assessments of health and well-being outcomes will improve understanding of the utility of different methods addressing resource insecurity while providing holistic insights as to meaning of resource insecurity across life domains. This project combines theory and method from anthropology, geography, public health, and engineering and responds to calls for multi-pronged and interdisciplinary approaches to global health challenges. The research trains students and has direct relevance for policy analysts, development practitioners and academics grappling with domestic challenges of resource insecurity. The objectives of this research are to (1) ethnographically examine the lived experience of water insecurity in a population facing chronic, but variable degrees of water shortage; (2) compare objective and subjective measures of water insecurity to understand the predictive capacity of these factors in structuring psycho-emotional and physical health outcomes; (3) assess whether water insecurity, food insecurity, and sanitation insecurity represent syndemic, or mutually enhancing stressors, driving negative health outcomes; and (4) synthesize political ecology and syndemic theory to expand the understanding and measurement of complex social and health phenomena. This research combines ethnographic methods, anthropometric assessments of health, quantitative measures of household water and food insecurity, community-level hydrological data, household water testing to identify contamination, and policy analyses. This study will deepen the understanding of the relationship between food and water insecurity, and by assessing sanitation conditions and health outcomes together, the research will result in a better understanding of the complex relationship between multiple resource insecurities and their downstream consequences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.