Household Water Security in Low-Income Rural and Peri-Urban Communities in South Texas

该奖项是根据2009年美国复苏和再投资法案（公法111-5）资助的。社会科学家最近揭露了美国普遍供水服务覆盖的神话：移民农场工人、农村贫困人口和城市无家可归者社区在供水和卫生基础设施方面存在严重缺陷。虽然制度和地点因素被认为解释了有限的水和卫生设施服务，但学者们忽视了水贫困问题的两个关键方面：(1)获得水基础设施并不能保证水安全，水安全的定义是健康生活所需的充足、可靠和负担得起的水和卫生设施；(2)低收入社区存在相当大的水安全变异性。德克萨斯农工大学的Wendy Jepson博士将通过研究德克萨斯州格兰德河谷下游低收入墨西哥裔美国人社区的家庭水安全变化来填补这些空白。格兰德河谷是美国最贫穷的地区之一，人口最多，缺乏适当的水供应和基本的卫生设施。该项目将分三部分执行。首先，PI和她的研究团队将进行家庭案例研究、小组访谈和半结构化访谈，以描述殖民地、低收入农村和城郊社区家庭水安全的意义和经验。第二，他们将利用项目第一部分收集的信息，开发和预测试一种家庭用水安全调查仪器。预测试和受访者评估将允许研究人员修改调查全面实施。第三，他们将管理调查工具并分析结果。描述性分析和与预测因子的多变量关系将采用标准统计分析进行评估，并进行假设检验。这些数据将能够确定预测不同程度的水不安全的变量、水不安全程度与家庭特征之间的关系以及水不安全程度与供水服务提供者类型之间的关系。该项目将为新的实证发现奠定基础，并推动与美国低收入社区水安全相关的概念创新。项目成果包括一种新的调查工具，可用于存在严重水和卫生设施不足的其他低收入地区。此外，该项目改变了目前对水贫困问题的理解，从区域尺度的“基础设施”到家庭尺度的“水安全”。以家庭为分析单位，可以对广泛的水和卫生问题进行细致的评估，包括缺水的物理、关系和行为方面。因此，预期的研究成果将推进当前关于水和贫困的知识，改变关于贫困和水的政策和社会科学研究，并为改善美国经济上被排斥群体的人类状况提供科学依据的建议。

This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).Social scientists recently exposed the myth of universal water services coverage in the United States: migrant farm workers, the rural poor, and urban homeless communities face substantial deficiencies in water and sanitation infrastructure. Although institutional and location factors are thought to explain limited water and sanitation services, scholars have overlooked two key aspects of the water-poverty problem: (1) access to water infrastructure does not guarantee water security, which is defined as adequate, reliable, and affordable water and sanitation for a healthy life; and (2) considerable water security variability exists within low-income communities. Dr. Wendy Jepson at Texas A & M University will fill these gaps by examining household water security variability in low-income Mexican-American communities in the lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas, one of the poorest regions with the largest population lacking suitable water supply and basic sanitation in the United States. The project will be executed in three parts. First, the PI and her research team will conduct household case studies, group interviews, and semi-structured interviews to describe the meaning and experience of household water security in colonias, low-income rural and peri-urban communities. Second, they will use information gathered in the first part of the project to develop and pretest a household water security survey instrument. Pre-testing and respondent evaluations will allow researchers to revise the survey for full implementation. Third, they will administer survey instrument and analyze results. Descriptive analysis and multivariate relationships with predictors will be assessed using standard statistical analysis, and hypothesis testing will be conducted. These data will enable the identification of the variables that predict different levels of water insecurity, relationships between the degree of water insecurity and household characteristics, and relationships between the degree of water insecurity and type of water service provider. This project will provide the basis for new empirical discoveries and advance conceptual innovations related to water security in low-income communities in the United States. Project outcomes include a new survey instrument that could be applied in other low-income areas where substantial water and sanitation deficiencies exist. In addition, the project changes the current understanding of water-poverty problems from 'infrastructure' at a regional scale to 'water security' at a household scale. The focus on the household as the unit of analysis allows for fine-grained assessments of a broad array of water and sanitation issues, incorporating physical, relational and behavioral dimensions of water deficiency. Therefore, expected research results will advance current knowledge about water and poverty, transform policy and social scientific study about poverty and water, and provide scientifically informed recommendations to improve the human condition of economically excluded groups in the United States.