Doctoral Dissertation Research: Children’s Experiences and Perceptions of Water Insecurity

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As a biological necessity and resource essential to the most basic cultural activities that promote child development, water’s absence or poor quality fundamentally shapes child routines and has profound consequences on their health and well-being. In response, households adopt water related activities and coping strategies aimed at maintaining the health of children and others in home. While children are often integral to these activities and strategies, current research focuses on an adult’s ability to maintain their own well-being. This leaves us with an incomplete and adult biased understanding of water insecurity. The purpose of this doctoral dissertation is to examine how children experience and perceive their daily routines and well-being to be impacted by household water insecurity. In addition to training a graduate student in anthropological science, the project has implications for public health (local and global), as policy and intervention are poorly informed by a lack of child centered research on water insecurity. Ecocultural Theory argues that children’s participation in daily structured routines is the single most important influence on their development. This project advances Ecocultural Theory by considering how severe resource limitations, such as water insecurity, shape child routines and impact child well being. Working with a group of 30 children, ages 6-11, and their parents, the research uses conversational semi-structured interviews, direct observations, and drawings to understand children’s roles and responsibilities related to the use, consumption, and management of water; what activities children engage in to address situations of insufficient or unsafe water; and how children perceive their well-being to be impacted by their water related roles, responsibilities, and coping strategies. By capturing both caregiver and child perspectives, this study further examines how children realize the expectations and responsibilities placed on them to support the water insecure home.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.