Tinker Sarah C, Moe Christine L, Klein Mitchel, Flanders W Dana, Uber Jim, Amirtharajah Appiah, Singer Philip, Tolbert Paige E
Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, Emory University, Atlanta, GA 30322, USA.
J Water Health. 2009 Jun;7(2):332-43. doi: 10.2166/wh.2009.022.
We examined whether the average water residence time, the time it takes water to travel from the treatment plant to the user, for a zip code was related to the proportion of emergency department (ED) visits for gastrointestinal (GI) illness among residents of that zip code. Individual-level ED data were collected from all hospitals located in the five-county metro Atlanta area from 1993 to 2004. Two of the largest water utilities in the area, together serving 1.7 million people, were considered. People served by these utilities had almost 3 million total ED visits, 164,937 of them for GI illness. The relationship between water residence time and risk for GI illness was assessed using logistic regression, controlling for potential confounding factors, including patient age and markers of socioeconomic status (SES). We observed a modestly increased risk for GI illness for residents of zip codes with the longest water residence times compared with intermediate residence times (odds ratio (OR) for Utility 1 = 1.07, 95% confidence interval (CI) = 1.03, 1.10; OR for Utility 2 = 1.05, 95% CI = 1.02, 1.08). The results suggest that drinking water contamination in the distribution system may contribute to the burden of endemic GI illness.
我们研究了某个邮政编码区域内的平均水停留时间（即水从处理厂输送到用户所需的时间）是否与该邮政编码区域居民因胃肠道疾病前往急诊科就诊的比例相关。1993年至2004年期间，从位于亚特兰大市区五县的所有医院收集了个人层面的急诊科数据。研究考虑了该地区两家最大的供水公司，它们总共为170万人提供服务。这些供水公司服务的人群总共进行了近300万次急诊科就诊，其中164937次是因胃肠道疾病就诊。使用逻辑回归评估水停留时间与胃肠道疾病风险之间的关系，并控制潜在的混杂因素，包括患者年龄和社会经济地位（SES）指标。我们观察到，与中等停留时间相比，水停留时间最长的邮政编码区域居民患胃肠道疾病的风险略有增加（公用事业公司1的优势比（OR）=1.07，95%置信区间（CI）=1.03，1.10；公用事业公司2的OR=1.05，95%CI=1.02，1.08）。结果表明，配水系统中的饮用水污染可能会加重地方性胃肠道疾病的负担。
