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覆盖水服务的神话：农民工、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面临严重不足。尽管体制和区位因素被认为是水和卫生服务有限的原因，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，而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数。德克萨斯州农工大学的温迪·杰普森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异性来填补这些空白。格兰德河谷是美国最贫穷的地区之一，人口最多，缺乏合适的水供应和基本的卫生设施。该项目将分三部分实施。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，描述殖民地、低收入农村和城市周边社区家庭水安全的意义和经验。其次，他们将利用项目第一部分收集的信息来开发和预测家庭用水安全调查仪器。预测试和答复者评估将使研究人员能够修订调查以全面实施。第三，他们将管理调查仪器和分析结果。描述性分析和与预测因素的多元关系将使用标准统计分析进行评估，并将进行假设检验。这些数据将有助于确定预测不同水不安全程度的变量、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水服务提供商类型之间的关系。该项目将为新的经验发现提供基础，并推进与美国低收入社区水安全有关的概念创新。项目成果包括一种新的调查工具，可应用于水和卫生设施严重缺乏的其他低收入地区。此外，该项目还改变了目前对水贫困问题的理解，从区域层面的“基础设施”转变为家庭层面的“水安全”。将家庭作为分析单位的重点，可以对一系列水和卫生问题进行精细评估，纳入缺水的物理、关系和行为层面。因此，预期的研究成果将促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，并为改善美国被经济排斥群体的人类状况提供科学知情的建议。

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.