Diarrhea is more prevalent throughout the developing world largely due to the lower levels of access to safe drinking water and sanitation, along with poorer overall health, hygiene, and nutritional status.

It is estimated that in the 1980s a child died approximately every six seconds from diarrhea

Half of the hospital beds in the world are occupied by patients suffering from diseases associated with lack of access to safe drinking water, inadequate sanitation and poor hygiene.

It is estimated that nearly 10% of the global disease burden could be reduced through improved water supply, sanitation, hygiene, and water resource management.

88% of global cases of diarrhea is estimated to be attributable to unsafe drinking water, inadequate sanitation, and poor hygiene.

90% of the deaths due to  diseases are children under 5 years old, mostly in developing countries.

More than 3.4 million people die each year from water, sanitation, and hygiene-related causes. Nearly all deaths, 99 percent, occur in the developing world.

Lack of access to clean water and sanitation kills children at a rate equivalent of a jumbo jet crashing every four hours.

Of the 60 million people added to the world’s towns and cities every year, most move to informal settlements (i.e. slums) with no sanitation facilities.

780 million people lack access to an improved water source; approximately one in nine people.

“[The water and sanitation] crisis claims more lives through disease than any war claims through guns.”

An American taking a five-minute shower uses more water than the average person in a developing country slum uses for an entire day.

Over 2.5X more people lack water than live in the United States.

More people have a mobile phone than a toilet.

source: water.org