Development Data Group, World Bank, Washington, DC, United States of America.
Development Data Group, World Bank, Copenhagen, Denmark.
PLoS One. 2020 Dec 15;15(12):e0243921. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0243921. eCollection 2020.
The Multidimensional Poverty Index is used increasingly to measure poverty in developing countries. The index is constructed using selected indicators that cover health, education, and living standards dimensions. The accuracy of this tool, however, depends on how each indicator is measured. This study explores the effect of accounting for water quality in multidimensional poverty measurement. Access to drinking water is traditionally measured by water source types. The study uses a more comprehensive measure, access to safely managed drinking water services, which are free from E. coli contamination, available when needed and accessible on premises in line with Sustainable Development Goal target 6.1. The study finds that the new measure increases national multidimensional headcount poverty by 5-13 percentage points, which would mean that 5-13 million more people are multidimensionally poor. It also increases the poverty level in urban areas to a greater extent than in rural areas. The finding is robust to changes in water contamination risk levels and Multidimensional Poverty Index aggregation approaches and weighting structures.
多维贫困指数被越来越多地用于衡量发展中国家的贫困程度。该指数是使用涵盖健康、教育和生活水平维度的选定指标构建的。然而，该工具的准确性取决于如何衡量每个指标。本研究探讨了在多维贫困衡量中考虑水质的效果。传统上，饮用水的获取是通过水源类型来衡量的。本研究采用了一种更全面的衡量方法，即获得安全管理的饮用水服务，这些服务没有大肠埃希氏菌污染，在需要时提供，并且可以在现场获得，符合可持续发展目标 6.1 的要求。研究发现，新的衡量标准使国家多维贫困人口增加了 5-13 个百分点，这意味着有 500-1300 万人在多维贫困程度上更为贫困。它还使城市地区的贫困水平比农村地区更为严重。这一发现对水污染风险水平的变化以及多维贫困指数的聚合方法和加权结构具有稳健性。
