Former IMMANA grantee Sera Young co-authored a new paper entitled "Variations in household water affordability and water insecurity: An intersectional perspective from 18 low- and middle-income countries".

Expanding from previous IMMANA work (HWISE) the authors analysed the relationships between household head gender and self-reported socio-economic status, and water affordability (proportion of monthly income spent on water) and water insecurity (a composite measure of 11 self-reported experiences) for over 4000 households across 18 low- and middle-income countries in Central and South America, Africa, and Asia

Among households with a high socio-economic status, the proportion of monthly income spent on water differed by household head gender. In contrast, greater household water insecurity was associated with lower socio-economic status and did not meaningfully vary by the gender of the household head. The authors contextualised and interpreted these experiences through larger systems of power and privilege. Overall, the results provide evidence of broad intersectional patterns from diverse sites, while indicating that their nature and magnitude depend on local contexts. Through a critical reflection on the study’s value and limitations, including the operationalisation of social contexts across different sites, new methodological approaches are proposed to advance multi-sited and quantitative intersectional research on water affordability and water insecurity. 

Sera Young is a former grantee that worked on the IMMANA project: HWISE: A novel tool for the assessment of household-level water insecurity: scale refinement, validation, and manual development