Evidence Supporting Yearly Community Well Testing

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Evidence Supporting Yearly Community Well Testing

• Lori Severtson1,2 RN MS
• Linda Baumann1, RN PhD
• 1School of Nursing
• 2Gaylord Nelson Institute for Environmental
  Studies
• University of Wisconsin-Madison

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Background Information

• The arsenic drinking water standard was revised
  from 50 µg/L to 10 µg/L in late 2001. This
  revision was politically contentious.
• A well test program (WTP) was offered to
  communities in a geographic area of the state
  where 23.5 of wells gt 10 µg/L.
• The adoption of the new arsenic drinking water
  standard was measured by assessing peoples
  personal arsenic safety thresholds the highest
  level they consider as safe.
• Community awareness may also play a role
• Communities can have different levels of
  awareness about an environmental risk, and can be
  aware for different reasons.
• Community awareness may increase the adoption of
  new information.

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The purpose of this study was to explore
differences among two types of high awareness
communities and low awareness communities.

• These factors were compared
• Risk information use
• Perceived usefulness
• Risk recognition
• Trust in information sources
• Opinions of revised arsenic drinking water
  standard
• Personal arsenic safety threshold

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Demographics

• Study Sample
• All WTP participants gt 5 µg/L
• N 1154
• Random Sample 1 4 µg/L
• N 99
• Random Sample No WTP Test
• N 259
• No test
• Private test

Male 57.8
Children in home 48.6
Mean Age 52.0
Mean Years in home 15.5
Mean Education Post HS
Response rate 85.4 Returned N 1233
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Adopting new risk information
What arsenic level did people select as the
highest level considered as safe?
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Personal Safety Threshold highest safe level
About 45 selected a safety threshold that was in
the range of the new arsenic standard large
variability in the remaining 55
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Community factors arsenic risk awareness

• High risk - high awareness n 400
• Publicity
• Low risk - high awareness n 200
• Education (WTP 3 times)
• High risk - low awareness n 200
• Low risk - low awareness n 365

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Average arsenic level among towns
High risk
9
Total information use
10
Information Perceived Usefulness
11
Problem recognition Town wells at risk
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10 µg/L (new standard) too strict
13
Safety threshold Highest level considered safe
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Trust in federal and town government
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Conclusions forHigh versus low awareness
communities

• Participants in a high awareness community
• Use more information
• Have higher levels of risk recognition
• than participants in low awareness communities.

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Conclusions forYearly well testing versus high
publicity

• Participants in a community offering yearly well
  testing
• Rated information as more useful
• Selected a lower arsenic safety threshold
• Disagreed that 10 ug/L was too strict
• Had more confidence in how their town government
  is dealing with arsenic is
• than participants in a high publicity community.

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Implications for Practice

• Ongoing educational programs are more effective
  than one-time programs.
• While high publicity was related to information
  use and to recognizing risk, education seemed to
  be a factor in the adoption of a lower drinking
  water standard

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Limitations

• Tentative findings!!!
• Only 2 high awareness communities
• 1 due to increased publicity
• 1 due to increased education
• Interpret as case study findings

• Acknowledgments
• Funded by ATSDR/Wisconsin DHFS
• UW-Madison academic committee
• Well test program staff
• NINR pre-doctoral fellowship