Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management, University of California at Berkeley , Berkeley, California United States of America.
School of Public Health, University of California at Berkeley , Berkeley, California United States of America.
Environ Sci Technol. 2017 Jun 20;51(12):6945-6956. doi: 10.1021/acs.est.7b01006. Epub 2017 Jun 8.
Approximately two billion people drink unsafe water. Boiling is the most commonly used household water treatment (HWT) method globally and in China. HWT can make water safer, but sustained adoption is rare and bottled water consumption is growing. To successfully promote HWT, an understanding of associated socioeconomic factors is critical. We collected survey data and water samples from 450 rural households in Guangxi Province, China. Covariates were grouped into blocks to hierarchically construct modified Poisson models and estimate risk ratios (RR) associated with boiling methods, bottled water, and untreated water. Female-headed households were most likely to boil (RR = 1.36, p < 0.01), and among boilers those using electric kettles rather than pots had higher income proxies (e.g., per capita TV ownership RR = 1.42, p < 0.01). Higher-income households with younger, literate, and male heads were more likely to purchase (frequently contaminated) bottled water, or use electric kettles if they boiled. Our findings show that boiling is not an undifferentiated practice, but one with different methods of varying effectiveness, environmental impact, and adoption across socioeconomic strata. Our results can inform programs to promote safer and more efficient boiling using electric kettles, and suggest that if rural China's economy continues to grow then bottled water use will increase.
约有 20 亿人饮用不安全的水。煮沸是全球和中国最常用的家庭水处理 (HWT) 方法。HWT 可以使水更安全，但持续采用的情况很少，瓶装水的消费却在增长。要成功推广 HWT，了解相关的社会经济因素至关重要。我们从中国广西的 450 户农村家庭收集了调查数据和水样。协变量被分组到块中，以分层构建修正泊松模型，并估计与煮沸方法、瓶装水和未处理水相关的风险比 (RR)。女性为户主的家庭最有可能煮沸（RR=1.36，p<0.01），在煮沸者中，使用电热水壶而不是锅的家庭收入更高（例如，人均拥有电视的 RR=1.42，p<0.01）。收入较高、户主年轻、有文化且为男性的家庭更有可能购买（经常受到污染的）瓶装水，或者如果他们煮沸，也更有可能使用电热水壶。我们的研究结果表明，煮沸不是一种无差别的做法，而是一种具有不同方法、不同效果、不同环境影响和不同社会经济阶层采用率的做法。我们的研究结果可以为使用电热水壶推广更安全、更有效的煮沸方法的项目提供信息，并表明如果中国农村经济继续增长，那么瓶装水的使用量将会增加。
