Funding: Duke Global Health Institute, Duke University
Years: 2019-2020
Randy Kramer (PI), Betsy Albright (PI) and Erika Weinthal (PI)
Since 2000 the international community has mobilized financial resources to help developing countries meet the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) that seeks to cut in half the proportion of people worldwide without access to safe drinking water and sanitation. With the focus on developing countries, policymakers and researchers have largely discounted questions surrounding access to safe water and sanitation within the United States. Yet, for segments of rural America the provision of drinking water and sanitation is inadequate, irregular, and of poor quality.
Leaking pipe, Lowndes, Alabama
Our research explores links between environmental and health inequities in Lowndes County, Alabama.
We plan to integrate public health, social, and natural science data and analytic methods that use both qualitative and quantitative data. Specifically, we plan to carry out an epidemiologic study of presence of human-borne tropical diseases (e.g., hookworm (Necator americanus)), a household social science survey, and geographic information system (GIS) mapping of social and environmental inequalities.
