La investigación, firmada por un equipo de la Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health y de otras instituciones, se llevó a cabo en Perú y concluye que los niños que sólo acceden a suministros de agua inadecuados tienden a ser más bajos y a experimentar más episodios de diarrea. Muchos estudios han comprobado que las mejoras en el suministro de agua y en el saneamiento han beneficiado claramente a la salud y a la expectativa de vida en los países industrializados, pero se conocía poco acerca del efecto a corto plazo sobre el crecimiento infantil.
El trabajo se llevó a cabo con 230 niños de una localidad peruana entre 1995 y 1998.
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