Water supply and sanitation access and use by physically disabled people: a literature review

This paper addresses the issue of aids to assist physically disabled people and their families living in low-income communities, to maximise their access to and use of the domestic water cycle. The literature review aims to establish whether or not there is a need for the planned research; to verify that efforts are not being duplicated; to highlight gaps in information; and to identify existing knowledge and practice that this research can build on.Findings:on the ‘hardware’ side, a search of the disability-focused literature found most detail related to activities of toileting, hygiene and self care, fewer references to household activities using water, and only one or two references to fetching and carrying watera search of the technical literature, in the fields of water and sanitation provision, found very little mention of access for disabled people. A problem arose in searching databases, as the term ‘access’ is widely used to refer to the provision of water and sanitation, rather than the usability/ accessibility of water and sanitation facilities, so a high volume of irrelevant literature was brought up and had to be sifted throughThe report offers recommendations relating to the gaps in information, a holistic view of the barriers, broadening the target audience, the key role of disabled people, the lack of resources and information for practitioners, the project scope and the relevance of independence as a goal.The recommendations suggest, amongst other things, that barriers to disabled people’s access and participation need to be viewed holistically. Recommendations include:the project will need to decide whether or not, and in what way the project should address these broader social and institutional issues. It is recommended that at the very least, the research will need to stay abreast of work in this field, in order to complement rather than duplicate effortsthe project may need to consider how outputs can provide ways of making links with and tap into existing initiativesoutputs that target agencies working towards attitude and behaviour change may be considered useful, by providing examples of its relevance to issues of water and sanitation, and practical ideas for implementing change