Armed conflict and household water sources

Abstract

Access to safe drinking water is among the most important determinants of public health outcomes. We pair household-level data from Iraq together with data on armed conflict and adopt a generalized difference-in-differences approach to study the relationship between household drinking water sources and armed conflict intensity. We find that households located in conflict-affected areas are more likely to use piped water accessed at their homes or bottled water as their primary source of drinking water, but are less likely to use public water sources or tanked water delivered on trucks and carts. We explore the temporal dynamics of these adjustments as well as heterogeneity by household characteristics. We further present direct evidence that conflict-exposed households are less likely to travel to obtain water.