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In 1996, amendments to the Safe Drinking Water Act required the U.S. Centers forDisease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency(USEPA) to conduct studies to determine the occurrence of waterborne disease for at leastfive major communities or public water systems and prepare a report on the findings(Pontius 1997). The primary objective of the Water Evaluation Trial was to determinethe incidence of gastrointestinal illness associated with consumption of drinking watermeeting all federal and state treatment guidelines. The study was conducted by a team ofepidemiologists at the University of California at Berkeley School of Public Health.To offset some of the criticisms of previous epidemiological studies, the WaterEvaluation Trial used a randomized, triple-blinded, placebo-controlled, crossover,intervention design (Colford et al, 2002). The intervention tested household-leveltreatment of drinking water using a kitchen countertop device that treated tap water withultraviolet light and microfiltration. Participating households were randomlyassigned to two different groups. One group received the active device and the otherreceived an identical-looking placebo (inactive) device. Half way through the study,"cross-over" occurred with the active devices replaced with inactive devices and theinactive devices replaced with active devices. The participants, the study staff, and thedata analysis team were "blinded" (unaware of) to which group each household wasassigned throughout the study. Blinding was necessary to reduce the likelihood of bias inreporting of disease and in the interpretation of the study results.The primary objective of the utility monitoring project was to characterize raw water,treatment plant, distribution, and household tap water quality with respect to microbes,water quality indictors, and physicochemical parameters so as to provide a context forinterpreting the public health data generated by the epidemiology study (LeChevallier etal. 2004). Includes 11 references, figures.

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Edition: Vol. - No. Published: 11/15/2004 Number of Pages: 10File Size: 1 file , 580 KB