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Water Sewer Service Disparities in North Carolina: Public Health Implications
(Seminar/Conference)
Dr. Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson
Associate Professor
Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
Abstract:
The development of community water supply service was one of the greatest public health advances of the twentieth century, credited with a 50% reduction in premature mortality between 1900 and 1936. However, evidence suggests that selected minority communities across the American South have been systematically denied access to community water supplies. The extent of such water service disparities and their public health implications have not been previously analyzed in North Carolina. This talk presents the results of a geographic analysis of water service disparities in Wake County, North Carolina, location of the state capital, and of a study of the relationship between access to community water service and risk of emergency department visits for acute gastrointestinal illness (AGI). The results show statistical evidence of systematic disparities in water service levels in extraterritorial jurisdictions of Wake County. In addition, lack of access to community water service significantly increases the risks of emergency department visits for AGI.
Biography:
Dr. Jacqueline MacDonald Gibson is an associate professor in the Department of Environmental Sciences and Engineering at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. She conducts interdisciplinary research on the quantification of risks due to environmental contamination and on the quantitative comparison policy options for controlling environmental risks. As an example, she is the principal investigator for a study to assess public health risks due to environmental contamination in the United Arab Emirates and to develop a national strategy to reduce those risks. Dr. MacDonald Gibson earned a dual Ph.D. degree from the Department of Engineering and Public Policy and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Carnegie Mellon University in 2007. Prior to returning to school in 2003 to study for her Ph.D., she was a senior engineer at The RAND Corp., a nonprofit public policy research organization. While at RAND, she served as liaison to the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy. She also previously was associate director of the Water Science and Technology Board, a unit of the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences, a nonprofit organization that advises Congress and the federal government on science policy matters. In these previous positions, she led a range of studies of issues at the interface between environmental science and public policy. Dr. MacDonald Gibson earned an M.S. degree from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and a B.A. in mathematics from Bryn Mawr College.
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(540) 231-0680