Co-Occurrence of Metal Contaminants in United States Public Water Systems in 2013-2015

• Type of Material: Article
• Authors: Alesha K Thompson, Emory University; Michele M Monti, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Matthew Gribble, Emory University
• Language: English
• Date: 2021-08-01
• Publisher: MDPI
• Publication Version: Final Published Version
• Copyright Statement: © 2021 by the authors.
• License: Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International
• Final Published Version (URL): http://dx.doi.org/10.3390/ijerph18157884
• Title of Journal or Parent Work: INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH
• Volume: 18
• Issue: 15
• Grant/Funding Information: M.O.G.’s effort was supported in part by funding from the Emory HERCULES Exposome Research Center supported by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences P30ES019776.
• Keywords: Life Sciences & Biomedicine; environmental exposure; Science & Technology; co-occurrence; CHROMIUM; Public, Environmental & Occupational Health; Environmental Sciences; HUMANS; LIPID-PEROXIDATION; Environmental Sciences & Ecology; VANADIUM; environmental monitoring
• Research Categories: Environmental Sciences

Abstract

The United States Environmental Protection Agency monitors contaminants in drinking water and consolidates these results in the National Contaminant Occurrence Database. Our objective was to assess the co-occurrence of metal contaminants (total chromium, hexavalent chromium, molybdenum, vanadium, cobalt, and strontium) over the years 2013–2015. We used multilevel Tobit regression models with state and water system-level random intercepts to predict the geometric mean of each contaminant occurring in each public water system, and estimated the pairwise correlations of predicted water system-specific geometric means across contaminants. We found that the geometric means of vanadium and total chromium were positively correlated both in large public water systems (r = 0.45, p < 0.01) and in small public water systems (r = 0.47, p < 0.01). Further research may address the cumulative human health impacts of ingesting more than one contaminant in drinking water.