Scalability of a Home Health Navigator Program to Reduce Arsenic, Nitrate, and Lead in Private Well Water

Study Summary

Approximately 34 million Americans rely on private wells to supply their drinking water. Private wells are excluded from the Safe Drinking Water Act. Consequently, people who use private wells have not benefited from pollution prevention activities mandated by this law. This is a public health concern because toxic chemicals such as arsenic, nitrate, and lead are frequently detected in drinking water provided by private wells at concentrations that exceed the Safe Drinking Water Act's maximum contaminant levels. Chronic exposure to toxics in drinking water increase the risk of several chronic diseases. Several states in the U.S. have implemented or are proposing legislative policies to require testing and treatment of private wells and it is critical that public health agencies offer a program to aid homeowners with adherence to these new policies. Subsequently, there is a need to determine if individual-level interventions would be more effective for promoting behaviors that would reduce, mitigate, or eliminate exposure to contaminated well water. Lay health care workers may be able to provide cost-effective counseling to promote environmental health decision making among homeowners that have contaminated wells. This study will involve a community efficacy trial that brings together university-based researchers, State and Local agencies, and Extension Services. The community efficacy trial will be implemented by community health navigators via the Extension service. Specifically, it will involve a randomized controlled trial in Oregon to test the acceptability, fidelity, scalability and efficacy of 2 different intervention arms to reduce harmful toxicant exposures through the adoption of appropriate well water treatment. Upon completion, it will will produce a private well safety intervention program that has been tested and modified through empirical research. By capturing the costs and retaining the most efficacious intervention components, our cooperative approa

Primary Outcome

The homeowner has adopted behaviors that will be appropriate for reducing their exposure to arsenic, nitrate, and lead in their drinking water. This will be assessed based on the homeowners response on a survey delivered after 12 month. Appropriate treatment will be defined as the use of drinking water technology that removes the contaminant detected (e.g. reverse osmosis, distillation, arsenic removal filter, or removal of lead-based water fixtures) or switching to bottled water for drinking an

Conditions Studied

Interventions

• BEHAVIORAL Community health worker

Study Locations (1)