Development of a water quality diagnostic 'toolkit' for the technology-based evaluation of waterborne chemical and microbial contaminants in international settings

Water is one of the world's most critical assets. As a public health priority for reducing diseases and improving health, global access to safe drinking water needs to be as universal as possible. International water quality surveillance and monitoring is critical to reliably evaluate both biological and chemical water quality, but in many instances is technically challenging. Thus, assessments of water quality are often not implemented in areas where quality is most compromised, obscuring associations and etiologies to potentially related illnesses.;The goal of my doctoral research was to develop a robust "toolkit" that integrates an evidence-based approach for the determination of water quality in a variety of international settings. Specifically, the objectives of my research were: 1) to optimize, validate, and integrate advanced technologies for an "advanced water quality diagnostic toolkit" that quantitatively detects key microbial and chemical waterborne contaminants; 2) to evaluate the capability of rapid water quality assessment methods in analyzing select waterborne contaminants, and determine the feasibility of method implementation in field-settings; and 3) to apply toolkit methods in field studies evaluating community water quality and water treatment technology performance capabilities.;Objective 1 was accomplished by developing adaptive methods that incorporate applications in logistically limited settings using laboratory-confirmed techniques to evaluate both biological and chemical waterborne contaminants. After first validating these analytical methods, in laboratory settings, evaluations of system capabilities were performed in trials that were progressively more challenging. Objective 2 was achieved by analytically selecting methods for rapid water quality assessment of contaminants with significant health impacts, followed by laboratory-based method validation and field-based method application to determine feasibility and ease of use. Objective 3 was achieved by implementing the toolkit to determine the quality of drinking water resources as well as drinking water used by households, along with contaminant removal efficiencies of small-scale water treatment systems in Ghana and Peru.;My dissertation integrated scientific methods to directly assess potential shortcomings in global water quality monitoring and evaluation, allowing for evidence-based contributions to the water community and public health. Application of this toolkit has the potential to streamline assessment of contaminants in water, thereby shifting the water quality evaluation paradigm from being reactionary to disease outbreaks to becoming preventative against waterborne threats. Though implications of this research are very broad in scope, the common thread is the goal of developing dependable analysis of the true waterborne threats that may impact public health.