Effects of China National Rural Water Supply

Objective To evaluate the effects of the China National Rural Water Supply Project implemented in Hebei, Inner Mongolia, Jiangxi, Hubei, and Yunnan since 1997. Methods A questionnaire survey combined with on the-pot observation was conducted among 17728 targeted people including 10 housewives aged 20～45,one class pupils of fourth grade,one headmaster,one director of waterwork, and one administrative village leader for each project village of the total 48 project villages in the 5 provinces/autonomous region. The findings were compared with those collected in baseline survey with SPSS software. Results The total tap water accessing rate increased from the baseline value of 1.19% to 65.03%. The prevalence rate of sanitary toilets increased from 4.2% to 22.9%. 94.7% of the primary schools gave a course of health education, 92.1% of the rimary schools had school toilets 88.6% of which were clean, and 47.2% of the primary schools had hand-related behaviors among the housewives and fourth graders and the hygienic situation of household kitchens and that of household latrines were significantly improved. Conclusion The implementation of the China National Rural Water Supply Project has markedly improved the environmental health of the project villages and the living conditions of the villagers, and greatly raised the health knowledge levels and improved the health behaviors among the local people