Neighborhoods as Socio-Techno-bio Systems in Mexico (NESTSMX):
How did ethnographers, engineers and environmental health scientists collaborate to figure out why so few people in Mexico drink water?
Abstract
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Long-term ethnographic research in Mexico City's working class neighborhoods made it clear to anthropologist Elizabeth Roberts that residents did not drink much water. Intead, they drank soda. But why? Residents were constantly exposed to billboards and commercials telling them that soda is unhealthy, and Roberts learned from urban water quality researchers that most of Mexico City's municipal water supply was safe to drink.
To understand this apparent paradox, Roberts teamed up with engineers and environmental health scientists. The resulting project, "Neighborhood Environments as Socio-Techno bio Systems "(NESTSMX) developed methodological tools for understanding the relationship between water, public trust, and health in Mexico City. The team collected open-ended ethnographic data, quantitative socioeconomic assessments, real-time water quality sensors, household surveys, and longitudinal molecular epidemiological records from 60 households across fifteen colonias in Mexico City. Combining these data, the team learned that a key reason why people in Mexico City drink so little water is because they receive water intermittently.
Our team documented the cascading effects for household members of living with an intermittent water supply (IWS). We documented how IWS forced people to store water when it arrived, for later use; and that no mater how good water was upon arrival, storage degraded water quality through processes such as chlorine loss. This deterioration compelled residents to purchase bottled water or soda — suggesting IWS contributes not only to infectious disease risk but also to chronic conditions such as diabetes and obesity by shaping household beverage consumption.
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