FIGURE 1
Example of the Pictorial Format Used to Present Results to Study Participants of Well Water Testing for Toxic Metals
Metals in Your Water
Arsenic
Cadmium
Vanadium
0.05 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9 1.0 Hexavalent Chromium
0.0 0.5 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 3.0 3.5 4.0 4.5 5.0
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
10 15 20 25 30 35 40 45 50
18.93
14.75
1.29
1.26
10.00
0 5
0 5
5.00
0.07
0.30
0.11
0.07
Your kitchen tap and well water exceed the EPA maximum contaminant level for arsenic in drinking water.
Your kitchen tap and well water exceed the NC 2L groundwater quality interim maximum for vanadium in drinking water.
Legend
Your Kitchen Tap Water
Your Well
EPA Maximum Contaminant Level
NC 2L Groundwater Interim Maximum Allowable Concentration NC DHHS Health Screening Level
Well Empowered Research Study | UNC Superfund Research Program | 2017
Note. DHHS = Department of Health and Human Services; EPA = Environmental Protection Agency; NC = North Carolina; UNC = University of North Carolina.
fund Research Program (SRP), to help them identify potential exposures and associated health risks. SRP researchers collaborated with residents to address their concerns and develop strategies to reduce exposure (Tom- linson et al., 2019). This collaboration was informed by previous e orts to share results from exposure studies in ways that build environmental health literacy (Boronow et al., 2017; Ramirez-Andreotta et al., 2016). As part of this pilot study, a subset of par-
ticipants joined an evaluation focused on: 1) the e ectiveness of using pictorial materi- als to report well water and soil test results to study participants and 2) whether such communications were associated with recall of test results or subsequent health-protec- tive actions. Methods Participants in the Well Empowered pilot study ( N = 39) were invited to participate in a
follow-up evaluation to provide feedback on report-back materials provided by the study. All Well Empowered participants completed a survey documenting their usage of well water, previous well testing, and where relevant, understanding of prior test results. The sam- pling process has been described elsewhere (Tomlinson et al., 2019) and the study was deemed exempt by the Institutional Review Board of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (IRB# 16-1721).
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April 2023 • Journal of Environmental Health
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