The Role of Public Health in Promoting Clean Water and Sanitation

By Your Health Magazine

As beings made up of 70% water, it is devastatingly important that people maintain healthy drinking habits. Equally as important, however, is the water that we drink. Unclean and unsanitary water is a blight on any society, causing sickness and ill health to the communities forced to drink it. As students enrolled in Masters in Public Health online will know, public health bodies play an important role in the research, promotion, and use of various technologies and methods to keep our water free-flowing, clean, and fit for consumption. But how exactly do they do this?

How Public Health Promotes Clean Water

There are public health organisations all over the world. Organisations like the World Health Organisation, UNICEF (United Nations Children’s Fund), and the Department of Health, all have a key role in ensuring that people all over the world have access to clean water. There are a variety of ways they do this.

For one thing, they conduct research into methods of keeping water clean and examine the infrastructure necessary to do so. Their findings and methods are usually available on their websites for public viewing and also produce reports and data that influence how regulations and legislation regarding water conditions are maintained. In short, they ensure that the public is informed as to what they should be drinking, and they make sure those with the power to take care of a nation’s people have access to accurate information regarding the country’s water supply.

Preventing Disease Through Sanitation

The effects of drinking unsanitary water are well known. There is a reason why we don’t drink water from the tap when it’s brown. There is a whole host of diseases and illnesses that are contractible through the consumption of unsanitary water. Organisations like the Centre for Disease Control (CDC) are responsible for conducting research into these diseases and their spread, including recommended courses of action regarding the sanitisation of a community’s drinking water.

Sanitation methods include the use of sewage pipes and facilities, as well as filtration and water cleaning infrastructure, ensuring that our water is free of dirt, grime, waste, and disease.

Global and Local Efforts

Organisations like WHO and UNICEF are indispensable when monitoring domestic and international water quality and availability.

When it comes to advocating for the people’s right to clean, drinkable water, organisations like the Department of Health, the US Office of Water, and others, are all responsible for the global push to ensure that all communities in all countries have access to the water they need. These organisations are the people responsible for examining the existing state of a nation’s water supply, and ensuring that it remains fit to drink. If for some reason a community’s water supply is unsanitary, these organisations are in charge of the investigation, clean up, and restoration of clean water to a community.

In the case of Melbourne’s water supply, this is achieved through an incredible amount of investment in our water infrastructure, ensuring that not only is our water clean, but that every household has access to running, drinkable water.

Future Challenges and Opportunities

Despite the ability of these organisations to keep most nations’ water in a drinkable state, the future holds only further challenges. As the world becomes increasingly urbanised, pollution rates continue to climb, and the climactic effects on the world have severe impacts on the water quality of the world’s population. As the climate crisis continues to build and the global population continues to increase, access to clean water may become for difficult to safeguard and guarantee.

However, if we invest in our water infrastructure, listen to the experts, and begin to move in the right direction with climate change, there is no reason that the potential damage to the world’s drinking water can’t be halted or mitigated. The opportunity for development and growth in our water infrastructure is ripe, as we must look to the minds of the future to examine our current situation, see where we may be in the next few decades, and establish the parameters that will allow future generations the same access to the safe, clean water that we enjoy today.