Trial reportPloS one2015
Microbiological Evaluation of Household Drinking Water Treatment in Rural China Shows Benefits of Electric Kettles: A Cross-Sectional Study.
Trial report in PloS one, 2015. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 10 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
10 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 27 citations in OpenAlex.
- Pooled it
- Effects of Boiling Drinking Water on Diarrhea and Pathogen-Specific Infections in Low- and Middle-Income Countries: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.The American journal of tropical medicine and hygiene · 2017Pooled it
- Health Trade-Offs of Boiling Drinking Water with Solid Fuels: A Modeling Study.Environmental health perspectives · 2025Article
- Household Water Treatment Practice and Associated Factors in Rural Households of Sodo Zuria District, Southern Ethiopia: Community-Based Cross-Sectional Study.Environmental health insights · 2022Article
- Article
- Bacteriological quality of drinking water from source and point of use and associated factors among households in Eastern Ethiopia.PloS one · 2021Article
- Boiled or Bottled: Regional and Seasonal Exposures to Drinking Water Contamination and Household Air Pollution in Rural China.Environmental health perspectives · 2020Article
- A Bayesian Belief Network model to link sanitary inspection data to drinking water quality in a medium resource setting in rural Indonesia.Scientific reports · 2020Article
- A hierarchical Bayesian Belief Network model of household water treatment behaviour in a suburban area: A case study of Palu-Indonesia.PloS one · 2020Article
- Household water treatment and the nutritional status of primary-aged children in India: findings from the India human development survey.Globalization and health · 2018Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
7 authors at 3 institutions in 2 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundIn rural China ~607 million people drink boiled water, yet little is known about prevailing household water treatment (HWT) methods or their effectiveness. Boiling, the most common HWT method globally, is microbiologically effective, but household air pollution (HAP) from burning solid fuels causes cardiovascular and respiratory disease, and black carbon emissions exacerbate climate change. Boiled water is also easily re-contaminated. Our study was designed to identify the HWT methods used in rural China and to evaluate their effectiveness.
methodsWe used a geographically stratified cross-sectional design in rural Guangxi Province to collect survey data from 450 households in the summer of 2013. Household drinking water samples were collected and assayed for Thermotolerant Coliforms (TTC), and physicochemical analyses were conducted for village drinking water sources. In the winter of 2013-2104, we surveyed 120 additional households and used remote sensors to corroborate self-reported boiling data.
findingsOur HWT prevalence estimates were: 27.1% boiling with electric kettles, 20.3% boiling with pots, 34.4% purchasing bottled water, and 18.2% drinking untreated water (for these analyses we treated bottled water as a HWT method). Households using electric kettles had the lowest concentrations of TTC (73% lower than households drinking untreated water). Multilevel mixed-effects regression analyses showed that electric kettles were associated with the largest Log10TTC reduction (-0.60, p<0.001), followed by bottled water (-0.45, p<0.001) and pots (-0.44, p<0.01). Compared to households drinking untreated water, electric kettle users also had the lowest risk of having TTC detected in their drinking water (risk ratio, RR = 0.49, 0.34-0.70, p<0.001), followed by bottled water users (RR = 0.70, 0.53-0.93, p<0.05) and households boiling with pots (RR = 0.74, 0.54-1.02, p = 0.06).
conclusionAs far as we are aware, this is the first HWT-focused study in China, and the first to quantify the comparative advantage of boiling with electric kettles over pots. Our results suggest that electric kettles could be used to rapidly expand safe drinking water access and reduce HAP exposure in rural China.
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