Oral

Everyone must consume water, but wide variations in water sources, quality and quantity result in gradients of human exposures to living and non-living constituents of water. While there are numerous options for studying the health impacts of water, there are many, important research issues to examine before determining whether a valid study can be done. Epidemiologic approaches require in-depth consideration of methodological challenges such as small area or spatial modeling, population and subpopulation dynamics, exposure assessment, bias, and confounding. The results of drinking water studies should be interpreted with a comprehensive awareness of the inherent epidemiological challenges and how they can be best addressed. In this session, researchers who have confronted these issues in epidemiological studies of drinking water will present the lessons they have learned and offer insights for future investigations.

Session Objectives: At the end of this session, the participant (learner) will be able to: • Identify key methodological issues in epidemiologic studies of drinking water • Describe the potential impacts of these challenges on conducting valid studies • Recognize methods to address the epidemiological problems • Interpret the results of these studies more effectively, based on a comprehensive awareness of the challenges and the appropriate methods for managing the issues.