Socioeconomic and Environmental Determinants of Access to Safe Drinking Water in Nigeria: a Maximum Likelihood Estimation Approach for the Case of Northeastern States
Year: 2026
Type: article
Abstract: This study investigates socioeconomic and environmental determinants of households’ access to safe drinking water in Nigeria using data from the 2024-NDHS for the Northeastern region. The population comprises 5977 households surveyed across the six Northeastern states, and of these, 2310 households were reported to have no access to safe drinking water, thereby constituting the event of interest for this study. Also, Maximum Likelihood Estimation (MLE) is used to estimate parameters that best fit the observed data within the framework of the binomial logistic regression model. The findings revealed that economic status has a positive and significant influence, such that as households’ economic status rises, access to safe drinking water also improves. Similarly, households located in urban centers are, on average, three times more likely to have access to safe drinking water than their rural counterparts. The results further revealed that households whose water source is located outside are nearly six times more likely to have access to safe drinking water compared to those who have water on premises. However, the level of education reveals a negative and statistically significant relationship with safe water access, indicating that households with higher education are less likely to have access compared to those with no education which sharply contradicted the a priori expectation of this study. Finally, households whose water source is located outside are nearly six times more likely to have access to safe drinking water compared to those who have water on premises. Hence, the study recommends for reduction of financial barriers for lowincome households by government as well as integrating government’s policy focus on ‘access’ with ‘quality assurance’ when making effort to expand safe water points closer to underserved communities.
Source: NAU Eco Journals
Language: English
Subfield: Water Science and Technology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: diamond
OpenAlex ID: W7220080281