scholarly journals Drinking water quality impacts on health care expenditures in the United States

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 ◽  
pp. 100162
Author(s):  
Fahad Alzahrani ◽  
Alan R. Collins ◽  
Elham Erfanian
Author(s):  
Cristina Marcillo ◽  
Leigh-Anne Krometis ◽  
Justin Krometis

Although the United States Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) theoretically ensures drinking water quality, recent studies have questioned the reliability and equity associated with community water system (CWS) service. This study aimed to identify SDWA violation differences (i.e., monitoring and reporting (MR) and health-based (HB)) between Virginia CWSs given associated service demographics, rurality, and system characteristics. A novel geospatial methodology delineated CWS service areas at the zip code scale to connect 2000 US Census demographics with 2006–2016 SDWA violations, with significant associations determined via negative binomial regression. The proportion of Black Americans within a service area was positively associated with the likelihood of HB violations. This effort supports the need for further investigation of racial and socioeconomic disparities in access to safe drinking water within the United States in particular and offers a geospatial strategy to explore demographics in other settings where data on infrastructure extents are limited. Further interdisciplinary efforts at multiple scales are necessary to identify the entwined causes for differential risks in adverse drinking water quality exposures and would be substantially strengthened by the mapping of official CWS service boundaries.


1988 ◽  
Vol 20 (11-12) ◽  
pp. 101-107 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald J. Reasoner

The passage of the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA) in 1974 (Public Law 93-523) significantly influenced microbiological, chemical and engineering research on drinking water quality in the United States. Microbiological quality research during the past 10 years encompassed the two basic areas of treatment and distribution. Much of the treatment research focused on generation of data to support the evaluation of turbidity and coliform maximum contaminant levels (MCLs) for the Interim Primary Drinking Water Standards. Major effort was also directed toward disinfection research on enteric viruses, pathogenic bacteria and the protozoan pathogen, Giardialamblia. Basic distribution system studies examined the occurrence of heterotrophic bacterial numbers and types in treated and untreated distribution waters, and coliform occurrence and colonization problems. Methodology developments bridged both treatment and distribution, and included enteric virus detection methods, injured ooliform recovery, heterotrophic bacteria enumeration, and Giardia cyst detection. Knowledge gained from the research efforts of the past deoade has resulted in new challenges and opportunities to improve drinking water quality.


1993 ◽  
Vol 19 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 95-119
Author(s):  
Timothy Stoltzfus Jost ◽  
Sandra J. Tanenbaum

Health care expenditures in the United States have continued to grow despite efforts to control them. This Article discusses the need for health care reform, outlines the model that reform should follow, and considers why the United States has not progressed toward a workable solution. It introduces a single-payer approach to cost containment and explains how such an approach could be “sold” in the United States. Finally, the Article examines various ways to mobilize support for such health care reform.


2005 ◽  
Vol 52 (9) ◽  
pp. 235-242
Author(s):  
J.G. Schulte ◽  
A.H. Vicory

Source water quality is of major concern to all drinking water utilities. The accidental introduction of contaminants to their source water is a constant threat to utilities withdrawing water from navigable or industrialized rivers. The events of 11 September, 2001 in the United States have heightened concern for drinking water utility security as their source water and finished water may be targets for terrorist acts. Efforts are underway in several parts of the United States to strengthen early warning capabilities. This paper will focus on those efforts in the Ohio River Valley Basin.


2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (4) ◽  
pp. 601-621 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lila Flavin ◽  
Leah Zallman ◽  
Danny McCormick ◽  
J. Wesley Boyd

In health care policy debates, discussion centers around the often-misperceived costs of providing medical care to immigrants. This review seeks to compare health care expenditures of U.S. immigrants to those of U.S.-born individuals and evaluate the role which immigrants play in the rising cost of health care. We systematically examined all post-2000, peer-reviewed studies in PubMed related to health care expenditures by immigrants written in English in the United States. The reviewers extracted data independently using a standardized approach. Immigrants’ overall expenditures were one-half to two-thirds those of U.S.-born individuals, across all assessed age groups, regardless of immigration status. Per capita expenditures from private and public insurance sources were lower for immigrants, particularly expenditures for undocumented immigrants. Immigrant individuals made larger out-of-pocket health care payments compared to U.S.-born individuals. Overall, immigrants almost certainly paid more toward medical expenses than they withdrew, providing a low-risk pool that subsidized the public and private health insurance markets. We conclude that insurance and medical care should be made more available to immigrants rather than less so.


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