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Association of cooking water with the health of middle-aged and elderly Chinese individuals: evidence from a national household longitudinal survey

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Abstract

Little evidence has demonstrated the association between health conditions and cooking water. The purpose of this study was to explore the relationship, using a representative sample of 10,531 subjects selected from the China Family Panel Study (CFPS). The usage rate of surface-exposed water showed a slight upward trend from 2010 to 2018. The adjusted odds ratio (OR) of chronic diseases with surface-exposed and well water was 1.140 (95% CI: 0.989–1.315) and 0.902 (95% CI: 0.839–0.969), respectively, with reference to tap/purified water. Surface-exposed water increased the likelihood of a worsening health change by 25.5% (OR: 1.255; 95% CI: 1.123–1.411), while well water was associated with poor self-rated health (OR: 1.169; 95% CI: 1.094–1.249). As such, surface-exposed water was associated with chronic diseases and worsening changes in health, and well water was negatively associated with chronic diseases. Although efforts to improve quality of drinking water have been made in China for decades, our conclusions reveal that water quality still remains a critical public livelihood issue among middle-aged and elderly populations. More in-depth research is required on whether the disinfection ingredients of tap water may increase the risk for chronic disease.

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Data availability

The datasets analyzed during the current study are available from the open data source (website: http://www.isss.pku.edu.cn/cfps/en/data/public/index.htm).

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Funding

This work was supported by the research project of Ningxia Medical University (No. XT2019009) and the Natural Science Foundation of Ningxia (No. 2020AAC03166) The funders had no role in study design; in the collection, analysis, and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the article for publication.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Xi’an Central Hospital, Xi’an, 710003, Shaanxi Province, China

    Hongli Zhang

  2. Department of Epidemiology and Statistics, School of Public Health and Management, Ningxia Medical University, Hui Autonomous Region, Yinchuan, 750004, Ningxia, China

    Zeshun Jiang, Zhenfan Yu & Jiangping Li

  3. Xi’an No. 3 Hospital, Xi’an, 710018, Shaanxi, China

    Kangkang Yan

  4. Department of Occupational and Environmental Health, School of Public Health and Management, Ningxia Medical University, Hui Autonomous Region, Yinchuan, 750004, Ningxia, China

    Jian Sun

  5. Research Center of Health Big Data, Key Laboratory of Environmental Factors and Chronic Disease Control, Hui Autonomous Region, Yinchuan, 750004, Ningxia, China

    Jiangping Li

Authors
  1. Hongli Zhang
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  2. Zeshun Jiang
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  3. Kangkang Yan
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  4. Zhenfan Yu
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  5. Jian Sun
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  6. Jiangping Li
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Contributions

HZ: validation, formal analysis, writing—original draft; ZJ: validation, formal analysis; KY: validation, writing—original draft; ZY: validation, formal analysis; JS: project administration, validation; JL: validation, supervision, writing, and revision conceptualization.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jiangping Li.

Ethics declarations

Ethics approval and consent to participate

Data came from the public database of China Family Panel Studies (CFPS), funded by the 985 Program of Peking University and carried out by the Institute of Social Science Survey of Peking University. The original CFPS was approved by the Ethical Review Committee of Peking University, and all participants signed informed consent at the time of participation.

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Not applicable.

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

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Responsible Editor: Lotfi Aleya

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Zhang, ., Jiang, Z., Yan, K. et al. Association of cooking water with the health of middle-aged and elderly Chinese individuals: evidence from a national household longitudinal survey. Environ Sci Pollut Res 29, 12347–12354 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16698-x

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11356-021-16698-x

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