Morning Briefing

"In a study of 193 countries to be released Thursday, Canadian-based researchers say they've been able to quantify -- for the first time -- how safe water and public sanitation efforts affect health when factoring out other variables such as a nation's wealth, fertility or location," USA Today's "Your Life" reports (Koch, 2/15). Dividing the countries into four quartiles, researchers at the United Nations University and McMaster University "found that countries ranked in the bottom 25 percent in terms of safe water had about 4.7 more deaths per 1,000 children under five years old compared to countries in the top 25 percent tier" and "when judged on access to adequate sanitation, countries ranked in the bottom 25 percent tier had about 6.6 more deaths per 1,000 children under five years old compared to countries in the top 25 percent tier," a United Nations University press release states (2/14).