Study title

Worldwide about 2 million hectares of agricultural fields are irrigated with wastewater. The practice of wastewater use is particularly pronounced in the urban and peri-urban areas of developing and emerging economies. Wastewater use in urban agriculture can serve as a common denominator for the transmission of diarrhoeal, helminth and malaria diseases if not undertaken in a safe manner. This project aims to assess the contribution of informal urban wastewater irrigation to both pathogenic and mosquito vector related disease risks. The specific objectives were: 1. To assess if there is any relationship between irrigation water quality (including pathogens) and mosquito vector population density in wastewater irrigated fields; 2. To identify informal wastewater irrigation practices associated with increased risk of diarrhoeal, helminths and malaria disease risks; 3.To estimate the fraction of diarrhoeal, helminths and malaria risks attributable to urban wastewater irrigation. To address these objectives, a multidiciplinary study involving entomology, microbial and physico-chemical analysis, socio-demographic surveys, epidemiological surveys and quantitative microbial risk assessment was undertaken. All investigations were carried out in the Kumasi Metropolitan Area, Ghana. The project is divided into five parts. This dataset includes data from "Integrated Health Risk Management for Urban and Peri-Urban Wastewater Irrigation - (4/5) Household and Epidemiological data, 2013".