ADVANCEMENT OF THE PRACTICE
Open Access
DIRECT FROM CDC ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SERVICES
Statewide Water System Maps: An Important Public Health Effort to Improve Drinking Water Justice
Marie Caiola Yolanda J. McDonald, MA, PhD Samantha Wyman Eleanor Crone Natalie N. Robbins, PSM Vanderbilt University Judy Manners, MSc Tennessee Department of Health Raquel I. Sabogal, MSPH Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
nomic status for a county might mask drink- ing water violations of another CWS and socioeconomic status heterogeneity within a county (McDonald et al., 2022). Some states have codified requirements for submitting geospatial data for statewide datasets that include service areas for very small (<500 people served) and small (501–3,300 people served) CWSs. Small CWSs and non-CWSs are often omitted from statewide datasets, thereby excluding communities that are often rural and potentially disadvantaged in terms of healthcare services and availability of capi- tal to improve and replace critical drinking water infrastructure (McDonald, 2023). To help close the gap in Tennessee, the Ten- nessee Department of Health worked with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Vanderbilt University Drinking Water Justice Lab (DWJL), Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation (TDEC), and Tennessee Association of Utility Districts to create a detailed map of these systems and boundaries (Figure 1). Within 6 years (2018– 2023), 98% of Tennessee’s boundary maps have been constructed ( n = 438) and 8 are pending completion, which represents the entire state. The result of the project is the TN Public Water System Area Mapping Application. This geospatial data viewer allows users to identify the name of a CWS based on street address or location, the source water, and the TDEC regional regulatory oce responsible for oversight. CWS boundaries on the inter- active map are linked to the Drinking Water Watch database, where users can obtain con- tact information and drinking water quality Improving Drinking Water Surveillance in Tennessee
Editor’s Note: The National Environmental Health Association strives to provide up-to-date and relevant information on environmental health and to build partnerships in the profession. In pursuit of these goals, we feature this column on environmental health services from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in every issue of the Journal . In these columns, authors from CDC’s Water, Food, and Environmental Health Services Branch, as well as guest authors, will share tools, resources, and guidance for environmental health practitioners. The conclusions in these columns are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the views of CDC. Marie Caiola, Dr. Yolanda McDonald, Samantha Wyman, Eleanor Crone, and Natalie Robbins are all aliated with the Vanderbilt University Drinking Water Justice Lab. Judy Manners is aliated with the Tennessee Department of Health. Raquel Sabogal is a health scientist at CDC.
U sing Community Water System Data for Drinking Water Justice About 95% of people in the U.S. receive their water from a community water system (CWS; U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, 2022). Maps of and data from these systems allow public health practitioners to assess drinking water quality and accessibility at a granular level (VanDerslice, 2011) and identify areas of private well use. These geospatial maps are important to allow public health practi- tioners to respond eciently to an environ- mental hazard event, such as a chemical spill, waterborne illness outbreak, or natural disas- ter. In addition, maps of these systems can potentially incorporate socioeconomic status data to highlight issues of health equity. Typically, public health practitioners have relied on aggregated county-level measures to assess drinking water quality due to the lack of
statewide repositories. In recent years, there has been increased interest in creating state-level maps of a CWS estimated service area bound- ary (ESAB) to assess drinking water. State- wide geospatial CWS ESAB repositories are an important tool in environmental health to cre- ate maps that empower public health practitio- ners to investigate matters of health inequality at the community level. CWS boundary maps can facilitate emergency management and response during natural and chemical emer- gencies. These boundary maps can also be ben- eficial to understanding waterborne illnesses such as legionellosis and cryptosporidiosis. The maps provide a way of understanding geo- spatial disease burden by water system rather than county or census tract. Some challenges arise, however, from this endeavor. Commonly, multiple CWSs can exist in one county. So, aggregating drinking water data and assigning a homogenous socioeco-
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Volume 87 • Number 1
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