In April 2014, the municipal water source for Flint, Michigan was changed from Lake Huron to the Flint River. Inadequate water treatment resulted in water contamination and resident complaints about the smell, taste, and appearance of their tap water. In September 2015, reports of lead contamination in the water supply and elevated levels of child lead poisoning became public and attracted international medial attention. This project will assess the impact of the Water Crisis and related issues on the health of local adults using spatial analyses of data on the water infrastructure and a community-wide health survey.
The survey results can be analyzed by gender, race, age, and across time, and mapped to determine trends by neighborhood, ZIP Code, or county.
The survey includes an extensive range of health indicators, including the physical and mental health items from the National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion’s (CDC) Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (BRFSS), the nation’s premier system of health-related surveys and the largest continuously conducted health survey system in the world.
The survey also includes brief scales and items on stress, depressive symptoms, sleep quality, disease diagnoses, and a wide range of health related behaviors.
The Survey Committee decided to address the water issue in the 2015 STYH Survey, as previous health policy efforts were aided by results from earlier survey waves. New items assessed self-reported tap water quality, water cost, and water sources utilized by residents (e.g., tap water, bottled water, filtered water, etc.).
Our project will include spatial analyses of Speak To Your Health! Community Survey data and existing spatial data on water infrastructure, including age and type of water pipes, age of water at delivery (the longer the time water is circulating in the system, the more contamination is evident), and objective measures of contamination. Other water infrastructure data may be available by the start of the project. Anticipated analyses include predictions of physical and mental health outcomes in the 2015 survey wave by water infrastructure properties, as well as comparisons of outcomes using spatially related data from survey waves conducted prior to the change in the municipal water source. A map library will be created that geographically displays survey and complementary data.
The reports and maps will be shared locally through community partnerships, presentations, and on-line dissemination. This information will be used to inform local policy makers, agencies, and programs. We will also submit abstracts for professional conference presentations and publications in peer-reviewed journals.
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