Page 56 - Azerbaijan State University of Economics

Mbu Daniel Tambi , Peter Arung Etat: Implications of Access to Portable Water
For Child Health Production in Cameroon

Thus the whole issue of access to portable water strongly relies on the place of
habitation. Critically, there are places by nature with good drinking water supply,
whereas in others their water is very poor. For instance the Buea community of
Cameroon naturally has pure water originating from the impermeable rocks of
mount Fako, this water flowing in the form of a spring needs little treatment to meet
the WHO standards of good drinking water. This result explains why urban residence is
negatively correlating with water source. The problem is not living in an urban milieu or
having tap water in the house but the question is; how good is the water for
consumption. In towns such as Douala, Kumba, Dschang, Tombel if water is not
preserved in the fridge it’s difficult to drink it confidently because of the taste and colour
the water has. The argument is not that the fridge removes the taste or colour but that the
temperature at which this water is store can eliminate every germ or bacterial contained
in the water. The household size is also important in determining this phenomenon of
access to portable water supply effects and child health in Cameroon.

Concluding on the determinants of access to portable using the Cameroon Demographic
and Health survey, we observed that factors such as: parent literacy, working mothers,
male household heads, breast feeding children, fertility rate, birth interval, social status,
household size, place of residence are important in influencing the probability of access
to portable water.

5.2 Household Access to Portable Water and Child Health Outcome
Table 2 present the results of marginal effect of probit regression in column 1, ordinary
least square in column 2 which can either be bias upward or downward; instrumental
variable result in column 3 and probit model controlling for endogeneity in column 4.

Considering equation one above, the result of the OLS regression can either be biased
upward or downward depending on the direction of the relationship between water
supply and child health effects. Therefore, this OLS result is not appropriate for
inference, this explain why the water source is insignificantly revealing that the value
of water source is not appropriate for judgment. The 2SLS result solve the problem of
endogeneity resulting from the data this can either be from missing variables or
omission whereas the IVPROBIT resolve the problem of endogeneity originating
from both the data and elsewhere, hence the estimates of IVPROBIT is our preferred
result. Further, following the joint F/(p-value) test for Ho: coefficients on instruments
= 0/Wald/chi2 of 41.88 [14, 19842; 0.0000] for 2SLS and 487.85 [14; 0.0000] for
IVPROBIT reveals that the probit result controlling for endogeneity is preferable.

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