Use of the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) scale to evaluate rural water delivery in small Ecuadorian communities

Community-led water systems are an important strategy to provide reliable, clean piped water to small, rural, and dispersed communities. However, evaluating the effect of these systems on small communities is challenging. To complement the  WHO/UNICEF Joint Monitoring Programme (JMP) water service ladder, the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) Scale, an experiential measure of water availability, accessibility, use, acceptability, and reliability that has been linked to multiple health and social outcomes, may support an improved understanding of how improvements in water access affect communities. In 2023, Green Empowerment, an organization that supports the development of community-managed water systems in Ecuador, and local partner organizations, integrated the HWISE Scale, using a 4-week recall period, into routine monitoring and evaluation surveys for communities where a new piped water system, or an upgrade to an existing piped water system, was planned. Baseline ..., , # Use of the Household Water Insecurity Experiences (HWISE) scale to evaluate rural water delivery in small Ecuadorian communities

Dataset DOI: [10.5061/dryad.5hqbzkhjh](10.5061/dryad.5hqbzkhjh)

## Description of the data and file structure

This directory contains the data required to reproduce analyses reported in the associated paper.

Contact:

Gwenyth O. Lee ([[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]); [[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]))

Samuel B. Schlesinger ([[e-mail]](mailto:[e-mail]))

### Files and variables

#### File: Data.csv

**Description:**  Some variables (survey date, respondent age, sex, and household size) have been omitted to maintain anonymity, as per Dryad legal and ethical guidelines

##### Variables

* survey_partner: partner organization engaged in project implementation
* survey_language: survey language. \"Chaʼpalaa\" includes surveys administered in a combination of ..., All data were collected by Green Empowerment partner organizations for monitoring and evaluation purposes. The Rutgers ethical review board approved the protocol for secondary data analysis and issued a waiver of informed consent (Rutgers IRB Protocol Number 2023001464). Deidentified data were shared with Rutgers University in batches on 16/11/2023, 03/04/2024, 24/07/2024, 25/09/2024, and 12/02/2025.