The Health Impact of Water Filtration

In the year 2006, the Cochrane Collaboration published a systematic review of 38 randomised, controlled trials of various water quality interventions to prevent diarrhoea titled, “Interventions to Improve Water Quality for Preventing Diarrhoea.” These trials covered more than 53,000 subjects from 19 countries over 20 years.

The objective of this review was to assess the effectiveness of interventions to improve water quality for preventing diarrhoea. This review, which covered both point-of-source and point-of-use household-level interventions, found that household interventions were twice as effective in preventing diarrhoea as common source-based interventions (wells, boreholes and communal tap stands).

Among household interventions, filters were consistently the most effective in preventing diarrhoea, with an average 63% reduction.

Filtration vs. other Point-of-Use Interventions¹

*Estimates outside this range have a likelihood of less than 5%

Of the household level interventions, filtration is the most effective in preventing diarrhoea.

References

1. Clasen T. et al. 2006. Interventions to improve water quality for preventing diarrhea (A Cochrane Review). The Cochrane Library (3). Oxford: Update Software