Water safety and infant mortality in Colombian municipalities

Four kinds of municipal zone, 2016-2023 (descriptive)

For the municipal council

The question

How do municipalities group by drinking-water safety and context, and how do infant mortality, school results and dropout look in each group?

  • 1,090 municipalities, 2016-2023
  • IRCA = utility-supplied (“prestadores”) water-risk index, INS open data

The four clusters

'| Cluster                               |   Rows |   Municipalities | Urban rows   |   Median IRCA |\n|:--------------------------------------|-------:|-----------------:|:-------------|--------------:|\n| Cities and large towns, no-risk water |   2271 |              284 | 67%          |           1.6 |\n| Highland towns, no-risk water         |   3750 |              558 | 95%          |           4   |\n| Lowland towns, low-risk water         |   2451 |              479 | 90%          |           9.2 |\n| Rural, low-coverage, high-risk water  |   2763 |              729 | 9%           |          35.2 |'

What sets them apart

Heatmap of nine profile features by four named clusters, blue below the yearly average and red above.

Cluster mean z-scores (within year) of nine profile features; blue below average, red above.

Outcomes by cluster

Three line charts of outcomes by year for four clusters, with gaps in missing years.

Median infant mortality, Saber 11 score and dropout by cluster and year; gaps where a source has no data.

What this does and does not show

  • Shows: municipalities fall into four water-and-context profiles; outcomes differ by profile
  • Does not show: that water quality causes any outcome
  • Confounders: poverty, health services, altitude, rurality
  • Gaps: infant mortality method changes in 2017; Saber 11 has no 2018 or 2021