This award will support Professor Arthur D. Murphy of Georgia State University in a research collaboration with Professor Miguel A. Mendez Rosado of the Instituto Tecnologico de Oaxaca in Oaxaca City, Mexico. The purpose of the research is to carry out a comprehensive study of water quality and management in Oaxaca. Microbiological studies of water quality and ethnographic studies of attitudes toward water quality and management before and after the rainy season will allow the project to relate water-borne illness to both water quality and household water management practices. Poor quality drinking water is a major cause of death and illness in Mexico and in other developing countries. The incidence of gastrointestinal and other water-borne illnesses in human populations is the result of the interaction between the potability of the available water and how that water is handled by the consuming household. By shedding light on the attitudes toward water and its management at the household level, this joint study will help health authorities design educational and intervention programs to improve water potability, while, at the same time, serve as a useful model in the field of urban planning.
