Households' access and use of water and sanitation facilities in poor urban areas of Kampala, Uganda

Access to safe drinking water and improved sanitation is a key public health measure to prevent outbreak of diseases such as diarrhoea. We conducted a cross-sectional survey in 50 randomly selected slums of Kampala to assess the sources of water and sanitation facilities used in urban informal settlements. A total of 1,500 household respondents were interviewed. More than half (63.6%) of the respondents were using piped water for their domestic needs. The majority of the respondents (68.3%) had shared sanitation facilities and only 20% of the respondents had private ones. The factors influencing access to sanitation facilities included; household ownership, number of families sharing a toilet stand, cost of the sanitation facilities, stability of the income of household members and cleanliness of the facilities used. This paper thus provides knowledge insights on which more sustainable options for water and sanitation technologies in urban poor settlements can be based.