Lack of access to clean water and its effects on health status of residents in border communities of Ogun State, Nigeria

Ogun State in Nigeria shares borders with the Benin Republic, and inadequate access to potable water within a locality can affect residents' health. This study examines the effects of a lack of access to clean water on the health status of residents of border communities in Ogun State, Nigeria. The work employed a mixed-methods research design, using structured questionnaires distributed to respondents from selected households within border communities in the study location for the quantitative method, while the qualitative approach employed Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and Key Informant Interviews (KIIs) to gather information from selected respondents. Descriptive, bivariate and multivariate analyses were carried out on the quantitative data using SPSS version 20. Also, thematic analysis was performed on the qualitative data. The results revealed that 77.6% of the residents in Ogun State border communities do not have adequate access to clean water, and also showed that the respondents perceive that the water insecurity in border communities of Ogun State, Nigeria, adversely affects the health outcomes of the residents. This implies that an enhanced accessibility to potable water in Ogun State border communities would lead to improved health outcomes for the residents. The study recommends provision of good sources of clean water such as treated pipe-borne water and boreholes in border communities in Nigeria in order to mitigate the adverse effects of water insecurity in these areas.