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Notice to Readers: National Drinking Water Week --- May 6--12, 2007
Safe drinking water is vital to public health. Each year, the American Water Works Association and an alliance
of organizations, including the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), sponsor National Drinking Water Awareness
Week to highlight the importance of tap water and the need to reinvest in water infrastructure. The theme for 2007 is Only
Tap Water Delivers (1).
Worldwide, approximately 1.1 billion persons lack access to an improved potable water
source,* and an estimated 3 million persons in developing regions of the world die each year from infectious diseases related to unsafe water and
inadequate sanitation (2). In contrast, the United States has one of the safest water supplies in the world. In 2005, more than
52,000 community water systems supplied approximately 93% of the U.S. population with tap water
(3,4), and more than 92% of public water systems were in full compliance with health-based drinking water standards
(3). Nonetheless, an estimated 4 million to 33 million cases of gastrointestinal illness associated with public drinking water systems occur
annually in the United States (5,6). These estimates do not include illnesses that occur in the estimated 45 million persons served by small
or individual water systems (4,7) or illnesses that are not gastrointestinal.
The occurrence of drinking-water--associated disease highlights the importance of maintaining and improving the
nation's water infrastructure. EPA promotes practices to change how the nation views, values, manages, and invests in
its water infrastructure so that water systems are sustainable and will be available to serve future generations. EPA is working
with the water industry to identify best practices to help
water utilities address aging infrastructure, efficient water use,
and watershed protection (8).
ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø activities related to National Drinking Water Week include reducing the adverse health effects from
contaminated drinking water and recreational water, improving access to safe water internationally, strengthening waterborne
disease
outbreak surveillance and investigations, supporting water-related programs at local and state health departments,
and addressing terrorism concerns related to waterborne pathogens. Additional information regarding ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø activities is available
at ,
,
, and
. Additional information about National Drinking Water Week
is available at and
.
References
American Water Works Association. Only tap water delivers: drinking water week 2007. Available at
.
Hutton G, Haller L. Evaluation of the costs and benefits of water and sanitation improvements at the global level. Geneva, Switzerland: World
Health Organization; 2004. Available at
.
US Environmental Protection Agency. FY2005 drinking water factoids. Available at
.
US Census Bureau. Annual estimates of the population for the United States, regions, and states and for Puerto Rico: April 1, 2000 to July 1,
2006 (NST-EST2006-01). Available at
.
Colford JM, Roy SL, Beach MJ, Hightower A, Shaw SE, Wade TJ. A review of household drinking water intervention trials and an approach to
the estimation of endemic waterborne gastroenteritis in the United States. Journal of Water and Health 2006;4(Suppl 2):71--88.
Messner M, Shaw S, Regli S, Rotert K, Blank V, Soller J. An approach for developing a national estimate of waterborne disease due to drinking
water and a national estimate model application. J Water Health 2006;4(Suppl 2):201--40.
US Environmental Protection Agency. Private drinking water wells. Available at
.
US Environmental Protection Agency. Sustainable infrastructure for water & wastewater. Available at
.
* Potable water that is supplied through a household connection, public standpipe, borehole well, protected dug well, protected spring, or rain water collection.
Use of trade names and commercial sources is for identification only and does not imply endorsement by the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services.References to non-ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø sites on the Internet are
provided as a service to MMWR readers and do not constitute or imply
endorsement of these organizations or their programs by ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø or the U.S.
Department of Health and Human Services. ÐÇ¿ÕÓéÀÖ¹ÙÍø is not responsible for the content
of pages found at these sites. URL addresses listed in MMWR were current as of
the date of publication.
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