Drinking Water: Health, Safety, & Perceptions

Secure access to high-quality water in households is a major environmental justice issue. This talk will provide an overview of public drinking water systems in the US, forms of household water insecurity in high-income countries, and ways in which the bottled water industry and other forms of privatized water contribute to environmental injustice.

Dr. Cassandra Workman (Assistant Professor, Anthropology) is a biocultural anthropologist and her research is on the lived experience of water insecurity and how water insecurity intersects with other resource insecurities. She is interested in how we measure water insecurity and also detailing the social and structural drivers of water insecurity experiences.

Dr. Sarah Praskievicz (Associate Professor, Geography, Environment, and Sustainability) is a physical geographer whose research focuses on rivers and water resources. Among other interests, she studies environmental justice issues related to water from a spatial perspective.