Drinking Water Quality in Northern Coastal Ecuador

Principal Investigator

Joseph Eisenberg

Co-Investigators

Lixin Zhang, Carl Marrs, James Trostle, William Cevallos Trujillo, Gabriel Trueba, Karen Levy, Alan Hubbard

Additional Personnel

Laura McLaughlin, Nicola Beck

Funding Sources

National Institutes of Health

About this Project

This project examines issues in drinking water quality in northern coastal Ecuador. In an observational study, we evaluated the effectiveness of point-of-use (POU) chlorine disinfection under typical use conditions and compared this effectiveness with the efficacy in controlled laboratory conditions. Participants had previous experience with chlorine disinfection but were given no training on the most effective way to use chlorine beyond initially reading the instructions on the chlorine bottle to participants as a safety precaution. Participants were encouraged to continue using chlorine in the same way that they had used it in the past.

We also explored the role of initial source water conditions as well as household factors in determining household water quality, and how levels of contamination of drinking water change over time. We sampled source waters concurrently with water collection by household members and followed this water over time, comparing Escherichia coli and enterococci concentrations in water stored in households with water stored under controlled conditions.