Browsing by Author "Parvez, Mahmood"

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Assessing willingness to pay for safe drinking water in Tala union of Satkhira district, Bangladesh
(© 2016 Published by BRAC University, 2016) Dey, Nepal C.; Parvez, Mahmood; Saha, Ratnajit; Khan, AS Moniruzzaman; Rahman, Md. Sajidur; Khanam, Roufa; Khan, Md. Reaz Uddin; Barna, Milan K.; Islam, Akramul
The people of the coastal regioo of Bangladesh are facing severe difficulties in accessing safe drinking water mainly during the dry period. Tala upazila of Satkhira district is ooe of the most affected areas because of widespread arsenic contamination in shallow aquifer, salinity in ground and surface water, difficulties in extractiog saline free aquifer due to hard rocks/stooes and excessive iron. There is an acute shortage of safe drinking water in the villages of Tala mainly due to low accessibility and inadequate quality of drinking water. This paper has been extracted from the pilot study cooducted in Tala union in 2015 to identify local people's preference for drinking water sources, their preferred option for buying and willingoess to pay for access to safe drinking water as well as to find out the opportunity of existiog water selling business. Water pricing, as one of the most iroportant element to develop water selling business model, requires the information regarding the willingoess to pay and affordability of the users for access to safe drinking water. This paper focuses on the willingoess of the households of Tala to pay for safe drinking water according to socio-ecooomic class of the households. Data required to determine willingoess of the households to pay was collected from survey, FGD and Kll. All the households in Tala Union, 8613 in total was covered in the household census. The household census dsta revealed that the pipe water supply to households was the most preferred option by the local people for buying drinking water. However, a large percentage of households were willing to buy drinking water either from any specific place or if water is supplied to their house in gallons. On an average 60% of the households were willing to pay for access to safe drinking water. Most of the respondents were ready to spend Tk. 20 per week to buy safe drinking water. The positive respouse for willingoess to pay for safe drinking water was fouod higher amongst the non-poor respondent (71%) as opposed to the poor (58%) and the ultra-poor (48%). So it is pre!rY obvious that socioeconomic status has an effect oo household's willingoess to pay for safe drinking water. Households of different socio-economic class were willing to pay 3% to 6% of their respective monthly income to access safe drinking water. As most of the households are willing to pay for buying drinking water, entrepreneurship development for water selling business can be encouraged to supply safe drinking water with minimum cost; thus eroployment of scme local people as well as ensuring access to safe drinking water can be achieved at the same time. At the same time, the water selling business, which has already started in Tala, should be given more importance and its promotion, proper manageroent, technical support and supervision should be prioritized to ensure its sustainable growth.
Effectiveness of a community-based water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) intervention in reduction of diarrhoea among under-five children: Evidence from a repeated cross-sectional study (2007–2015) in rural Bangladesh
(Science Direct, 8/20/2019) Dey, Nepal C; Parvez, Mahmood; Islam, Mir Raihanul; Mistry, Sabuj K; Levine, David I
Diarrhoea, the most common disease directly related to water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH), still remains one of the most significant health problems among children under-five worldwide. In this reality, BRAC, the largest NGO in the world initiated a comprehensive WASH intervention in 50 upazilas (sub-districts) of Bangladesh in 2007 which was later scaled up to cover 150 upazilas in two subsequent phases. The intervention period of the programme was 2007–2011. The present study encompassed 30 upazilas of the first phase of intervention. The aim of the study was to investigate the effectiveness of this intervention on reduction of diarrhoea among under-five children, and to identify the factors associated with childhood diarrhoea. A repeated cross-sectional study design was followed, and a population-based survey was carried out on four occasions: baseline (2007), midline (2009), endline (2011), and post-endline (2015) among 4,775 households. This analysis considers only households having at least one under-five children. Absence of handwashing practice with soap after defecation and before eating food, unclean latrine condition, and unsafe disposal of child faeces were identified as significant risk factors associated with under-five diarrhoea from Log-binomial regression. The prevalence of under-five diarrhoea within the past 2 weeks of the survey declined from 13.7% at baseline to 3.6% at end-line (p < 0.001) in the WASH intervention area. However, the progress seemingly stalled after 2011, which may have occurred due to the lack of improvement in unsafe disposal of child faeces and unclean latrine condition after the intervention period. Study findings suggest that, to reduce the prevalence of childhood diarrhoea it is important to promote safe disposal of child faeces, maintaining cleanliness of latrines, and washing hand with soap at critical times, beyond merely increasing the sanitation coverage. Findings also underline the necessity of maintaining a small-scale monitoring component involving local community, such as a WatSan committee (a local committee comprising the user communities for supervising WASH related activities) for periodic monitoring at household level for a certain period after the program intervention works to make the behavioural change more sustainable and to keep the reduction rate of under-five diarrhoeal prevalence steady.
Prevalence and Determinants of Hypertension among Urban Slum Dwellers in Bangladesh
(Scopus, 22-11-11) Mistry, Sabuj Kanti; Hossain, Md. Belal; Parvez, Mahmood; Gupta, Rajat Das; Arora, Amit
Background In low- and middle- income countries such as Bangladesh, urban slum dwellers are particualry vulnerable to hypertension due to inadequate facilities for screening and management, as well as inadequate health literacy among them. However, there is scarcity of evidence on hypertension among the urban slum dwellers in Bangladesh. The present study aimed to determine the prevalence and factors associated with hypertension among urban slum dwellers in Bangladesh. Methods Data were collected as part of a large-scale cross-sectional survey conducted by Building Resources Across Communities (BRAC) between October 2015 and January 2016. The present analysis was performed among 1155 urban slum dwellers aged 35 years or above. A structured questionnaire was adminstered to collect data electronically and blood pressure measurements were taken using standardised procedures. Binary logistic regression with generalized estimating equation modelling was performed to estimate the factors associated with hypertension. Results The prevalence of hypertension was 28.3% among urban slum dwellers aged 35 years and above. In adjusted analysis, urban slum dwellers aged 45–54 years (AOR: 1.64, 95% CI: 1.17–2.28), 55–64 years (AOR: 2.47, 95% CI: 1.73–3.53) and ≥ 65 years (AOR: 2.34, 95% CI: 1.47–3.72), from wealthier households (AOR: 1.94, 95% CI: 1.18–3.20), sleeping < 7 h per day (AOR: 1.87, 95% CI: 1.39–2.51), who were overweight (AOR: 1.53, 95% CI: 1.09–2.14) or obese (AOR: 2.34, 95% CI: 1.71–3.20), and having self-reported diabetes (AOR: 3.08, 95% CI: 1.88–5.04) had an increased risk of hypertension. Moreover, 51.0% of the participants were taking anti-hypertensive medications and 26.4% of them had their hypertension in control. Conclusions The findings highlight a high burden of hypertension and poor management of it among the slum dwellers in Bangladesh requiring a novel approach to improve care. It is integral to effectively implement the available national non-communicable disease (NCD) control guidelines and redesign the current urban primary health care system to have better coordination.