IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/plo/pwat00/0000303.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Social vulnerability and exposure to private well water

Author

Listed:
  • Miriam Wamsley
  • Eric S Coker
  • Robin Taylor Wilson
  • Kevin Henry
  • Heather M Murphy

Abstract

One quarter of the population of Pennsylvania relies on private domestic well water: two-fold greater than the US average. Private well owners are responsible for the maintenance and treatment of their water supply. Targeted interventions are needed to support these well owners to ensure they have access to safe drinking water, free of contaminants. To develop appropriate interventions, an understanding of the characteristics and social vulnerability of communities with high well water use is needed. The purpose of this study was to determine the spatial patterning of social vulnerability in Pennsylvania and assess the association between social vulnerability and private domestic wells using profile regression. Census data and water supply information were used to estimate the proportion of the population using domestic wells. Ten area-level measures of social vulnerability at the census-tract level were investigated, using Bayesian profile regression to link clustering of social vulnerability profiles with prevalence of private domestic wells. Profile regression results indicated 15 distinct profiles of social vulnerability that differ significantly according to the area-level prevalence of domestic well use frequency. Out of these, two profiles of census tracts were identified as socially vulnerable and had a high proportion of well-water users, representing approximately 1.1 million Pennsylvanians or a third of all well water users in the State. High area-level social vulnerability profiles coincide with a high frequency of private well-water use in PA. This study presents a data-driven approach to supporting public health programs aimed at reducing exposure and health risks of chemical and infectious agents in household water supplies by targeting vulnerable populations.

Suggested Citation

  • Miriam Wamsley & Eric S Coker & Robin Taylor Wilson & Kevin Henry & Heather M Murphy, 2024. "Social vulnerability and exposure to private well water," PLOS Water, Public Library of Science, vol. 3(12), pages 1-21, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:plo:pwat00:0000303
    DOI: 10.1371/journal.pwat.0000303
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/water/article?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000303
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://journals.plos.org/water/article/file?id=10.1371/journal.pwat.0000303&type=printable
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1371/journal.pwat.0000303?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Liverani, Silvia & Hastie, David I. & Azizi, Lamiae & Papathomas, Michail & Richardson, Sylvia, 2015. "PReMiuM: An R Package for Profile Regression Mixture Models Using Dirichlet Processes," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 64(i07).
    2. J. Tom Mueller & Stephen Gasteyer, 2021. "The widespread and unjust drinking water and clean water crisis in the United States," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 12(1), pages 1-8, December.
    3. Samuel Rufat & Eric Tate & Christopher T. Emrich & Federico Antolini, 2019. "How Valid Are Social Vulnerability Models?," Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 109(4), pages 1131-1153, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Gainbi Park & Zengwang Xu, 2022. "The constituent components and local indicator variables of social vulnerability index," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 110(1), pages 95-120, January.
    2. Leonard, Alycia & Nguti, Kuthea & Flores Lanza, Micaela & Hirmer, Stephanie, 2025. "Shedding light on vulnerability: Intersectional energy planning for development," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 211(C).
    3. Wang, Ketong & Porter, Michael D., 2018. "Optimal Bayesian clustering using non-negative matrix factorization," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 395-411.
    4. Daniel W Kennedy & Jessica Cameron & Paul P -Y Wu & Kerrie Mengersen, 2021. "Peer groups for organisational learning: Clustering with practical constraints," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(6), pages 1-20, June.
    5. Laura Liu, 2017. "Density Forecasts in Panel Models: A semiparametric Bayesian Perspective," PIER Working Paper Archive 17-006, Penn Institute for Economic Research, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania, revised 28 Apr 2017.
    6. Patricia Gilholm & Kerrie Mengersen & Helen Thompson, 2020. "Identifying latent subgroups of children with developmental delay using Bayesian sequential updating and Dirichlet process mixture modelling," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(6), pages 1-17, June.
    7. repec:osf:osfxxx:6ewmu_v1 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Laura Liu, 2018. "Density Forecasts in Panel Data Models : A Semiparametric Bayesian Perspective," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2018-036, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    9. Joshua D. Miller & Chad Staddon & Aaron Salzberg & Julius B. Lucks & Wändi Bruine de Bruin & Sera L. Young, 2024. "Self-reported anticipated harm from drinking water across 141 countries," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-13, December.
    10. Mary Angelica Painter & Sameer H. Shah & Gwendolyn C. Damestoit & Fariha Khalid & Wendy Prudencio & Musabber Ali Chisty & Fernando Tormos-Aponte & Olga Wilhelmi, 2024. "A systematic scoping review of the Social Vulnerability Index as applied to natural hazards," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 120(8), pages 7265-7356, June.
    11. Hamidreza Rabiei-Dastjerdi & Finbarr Brereton & Eoin O’Neill, 2025. "Towards designing a comprehensive composite index for social vulnerability to natural hazards in the big data era: potential challenges and partial solutions," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 121(4), pages 3885-3913, March.
    12. Zachary T. Goodman & Caitlin A. Stamatis & Justin Stoler & Christopher T. Emrich & Maria M. Llabre, 2021. "Methodological challenges to confirmatory latent variable models of social vulnerability," Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, Springer;International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, vol. 106(3), pages 2731-2749, April.
    13. Eric Coker & Robert Gunier & Asa Bradman & Kim Harley & Katherine Kogut & John Molitor & Brenda Eskenazi, 2017. "Association between Pesticide Profiles Used on Agricultural Fields near Maternal Residences during Pregnancy and IQ at Age 7 Years," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 14(5), pages 1-20, May.
    14. Sarrias, Mauricio, 2016. "Discrete Choice Models with Random Parameters in R: The Rchoice Package," Journal of Statistical Software, Foundation for Open Access Statistics, vol. 74(i10).
    15. Matthew Heiner & Matthew J. Heaton & Benjamin Abbott & Philip White & Camille Minaudo & Rémi Dupas, 2023. "Model-Based Clustering of Trends and Cycles of Nitrate Concentrations in Rivers Across France," Journal of Agricultural, Biological and Environmental Statistics, Springer;The International Biometric Society;American Statistical Association, vol. 28(1), pages 74-98, March.
    16. Lauren Hoskovec & Wande Benka-Coker & Rachel Severson & Sheryl Magzamen & Ander Wilson, 2021. "Model choice for estimating the association between exposure to chemical mixtures and health outcomes: A simulation study," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 16(3), pages 1-21, March.
    17. Sarah L. Jackson & Sahar Derakhshan & Leah Blackwood & Logan Lee & Qian Huang & Margot Habets & Susan L. Cutter, 2021. "Spatial Disparities of COVID-19 Cases and Fatalities in United States Counties," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 18(16), pages 1-21, August.
    18. Matheus Pereira Libório & João Francisco Abreu & Petr Iakovlevitch Ekel & Alexei Manso Correa Machado, 2023. "Effect of sub-indicator weighting schemes on the spatial dependence of multidimensional phenomena," Journal of Geographical Systems, Springer, vol. 25(2), pages 185-211, April.
    19. Kane, Natalie, 2022. "Revealing the racial and spatial disparity in pediatric asthma: A Kansas City case study," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 292(C).
    20. Ronak Paul & Sean Reid & Carolina Coimbra Vieira & Christopher Wolfe & Yuan Zhao & Yan Zhang & Rumi Chunara, 2023. "Methodological improvements in social vulnerability index construction reinforce role of wealth across international contexts," MPIDR Working Papers WP-2023-017, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany.
    21. Xuchao Yang & Lin Lin & Yizhe Zhang & Tingting Ye & Qian Chen & Cheng Jin & Guanqiong Ye, 2019. "Spatially Explicit Assessment of Social Vulnerability in Coastal China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(18), pages 1-20, September.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:plo:pwat00:0000303. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: water (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://journals.plos.org/water .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.