The University of Wisconsin-Madison’s La Follette School of Public Affairs says water filtration and purification helps people live longer.
According to the statement, a city filtration system may increase male ages by 3.2 months. The research by Jason Fletcher, a Vilas Distinguished Achievement Professor of Public Affairsat La Follette, was recently published in the American Journal of Health Economics.
Fletcher and his co-author, Hamid Noghanibehambari from Austin Peay State University, used data from the Death Master Files of Social Security Administration death records in tandem with water filtration system dates in their research.
“While water quality has improved in many areas, this study shows the real impacts to communities without access to safe water, both in the U.S. and globally,” Fletcher said in a statement. “With about one in four people globally lacking safely managed drinking water at home, the consequences on human health are significant.”
Fletcher’s new website, The American Mortality Project, documents more than two dozen studies in a research agenda studying other similar things like the effect of hookworm eradication in the south on lifespan.
