What Drives Drinking Water And Sanitation Choices Among Vulnerable Households? Evidence From Nigeria

This dataset was sourced from the fourth wave of the Nigerian Living Standard Measurement Survey (LSMS) datasets to determine the socio-demographic and locational factors influencing the households’ choices of drinking water sources (DWS) and sanitation facilities in Nigeria.
The explained variables used in this study are access to drinking water sources and access to sanitation sources. Access to improved drinking water sources was operationalised in the questionnaire by asking, “What is the main source of drinking water for the household?”. The household head or the representative was asked to select from sixteen different predetermined drinking water sources with an option of mentioning other sources that were not listed in the options. In the case of access to sanitation services, the household head or the representative was asked, “What kind of toilet facility do members of your household usually use?”. The responses were also recoded into open defecation, unimproved and improved based on the JMP ladder for sanitation. The explanatory variables used in this study are the total number of rooms in a dwelling, water time, electricity, dependency ratio, household head education, average household years of education, household size, gender, age, marital status, region, wealth index and zone. These variables were operationalised differently. Variables such as number of rooms, water time, dependency ratio, household head education, average household years of education, household size, age and wealth index are continuous. In contrast, electricity gender, age, marital status, region, and zone are categorical. The household wealth index was calculated using characteristics relating to household asset ownership, such as radio, washing machine, guitar, and refrigerator ownership.