Occupational Therapy - 2015

22 of clear sealable containers and then exposing them to direct sunlight for 6 or more hours, which renders bac- teria harmless (Berney, Weilenmann, Simonetti, & Egli, 2006; Boyle et al., 2008). Ceramic filtration involves the use of ceramic filters which are empty porous contain- ers placed in larger vessels with a water valve. Water poured into the suspended ceramic filter, slowly strains into the larger vessel to be accessed via the water valve at the bottom of the vessel (Clasen, Brown, Collin, Sun- tura, & Cairncross, 2004). Slow sand filtration requires the pouring of water into a plastic container with a long spout attached to the bottom filled with sand, rocks, and/or gravel, until it reaches just above the sand. A biofilm is created on the surface of the sand comprised of microorganisms. In order to attain filtered drinking water, one would pour more water into the container over a diluting filter pushing the clean water out of the long spout, which empties the water at a height above the sand layer (CDC, 2014b). The aforementioned treatment methods can serve as effective forms of water filtration depending on the personal aptitudes, cultural beliefs, physical environment, temporal constraints, and economic affordances of regions in need of clean drink- ing water. Additionally, these treatment methods have the capacity to take up a large portion of time; therefore, encroaching on time that could otherwise be spent en- gaging in basic and meaningful occupations. Discussion Clean Water Access and Occupation The acquisition of clean water, or the treatment prac- tices to create safe water, have the capacity to limit, overtake, and prohibit important occupations. Separate from occupational experience, occupations are also cat- egorized into different areas of participation. Such areas of occupations are “activities of daily living (ADLs), in- dependent activities of daily living (IADLs), which are basic occupations that can be performed by someone else, rest, sleep, education, work, play, and social partic- ipation” (American Occupational Therapy Association [AOTA], 2014, p. S6). Activities of daily living are oc- cupations completed to fulfill basic needs, like drinking water, independent activities of daily living are basic oc- cupations that can be performed by someone else, such as water acquisition or water treatment. The interaction between occupations and their contexts is multifacto- rial and reciprocal. Contexts of occupations range from personal, historic, geographic, physical, temporal, so- cial, cultural, virtual, political, and economic (Hamil- ton, 2010; Stadnyk, et al., 2010; Townsend & Wilcock, 2004) environments, all of which greatly impact who, what, where, when, why, and how individuals engage in occupations. The identified negative effects experienced by many individuals globally, seeking a clean water source, are occupational disruption, imbalance, deprivation, marginalization, and alienation as well as social isola- tion, displacement, change in occupational meaning, and identity confusion or crisis. Blakeney and Mar- shall (2009), interviewed Letcher County, Kentucky residents who did not have access to clean water due to runoff from coal mines and found “that almost every daily occupation as identified in the areas of occupa- tion, previously named, were affected by polluted water in the physical environment (watershed), as well as in- side the home from well water or the municipal water supply” (p. 51). Individuals and populations experienc- ing water-related or waterborne illness, whom have to travel long taxing distances to obtain clean water, and/ or whom have to engage in home water treatment prac- tices can experience a variety of occupational conse- quences. The most concerning occupational consequence such populations face is occupational deprivation, which is the long-term impedance of individually sig- nificant or vitally important occupations due to reasons outside of ones’ power (Whiteford, 2010). Tragic psy- chological/emotional, sociocultural, and physiological effects may be experienced as consequence of limited or lack of clean water access. Psychologically speaking, concern for one’s survival or one’s family’s survival at any age would be emotionally taxing. According to M. K. Anderson, a missionary from the U.S., in Burkina Faso, because of their limited access to water and basic necessities, parents often have to select which child to invest and support physiologically, to ensure their sur- vival, thus, instead of losing all of their children they may lose a lesser amount (personal communication, November 9, 2014). The grief of losing a child can be crippling, but having to make such an impossible de- cision could have lasting effects of guilt, reclusiveness, depression, self-punishment, and withdrawal from participating in occupations once found meaningful. Such unimaginable conditions can lead to occupational alienation from feelings of helplessness, seclusion, exas- peration, disaffection to oneself and communities when occupational participation is experienced to be lacking value (Stadnyk et al., 2010). OCCUPATION: A Medium of Inquiry for Students, Faculty & Other Practitioners Advocating for Health through Occupational Studies November 2015, Volume 1, Number 1