Optimal Allocation of Water and Sanitation Facilities to Prevent Communicable Diarrheal Diseases in Senegal Under Partial Interference

• Activity Number: 523 - Real-World Epidemiological Studies
• Type: Contributed
• Date/Time: Thursday, August 11, 2022 : 8:30 AM to 10:20 AM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics in Epidemiology
• Author(s): Chan Park* and Guanhua Chen and Menggang Yu and Hyunseung Kang
• Companies: University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Wisconsin-Madison
• Keywords: Causal inference; Continuous treatment; Demographic and Health Survey; Excess risk; Optimal treatment rule

Abstract

For several decades, Senegal has faced inadequate water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) facilities in households, contributing to persistent, high levels of communicable diarrheal diseases. Unfortunately, the ideal WASH policy where every household in Senegal installs WASH facilities is impossible due to logistical and budgetary concerns. This work proposes to estimate an optimal allocation rule of WASH facilities in Senegal by combining recent advances in personalized medicine and partial interference in causal inference. Our allocation rule helps public health officials in Senegal decide what fraction of total households in a region should get WASH facilities based on block-level and household-level characteristics. We characterize the excess risk of the allocation rule and show that our rule outperforms other allocation policies in Senegal.