Research

The Drinking Water Justice Lab (DWJL) focuses on research projects that increase awareness of drinking water injustice in the United States to provide evidence to inform policy to improve drinking water accessibility, affordability, and quality. Current projects range from assessing the technical, managerial, and financial capacity challenges facings community water systems in Tennessee to investigating the impact of drinking water contaminants on different human body organ systems.

All of these projects are grounded in the lab’s three primary theoretical frameworks:

• The Drinking Water Disparities Framework (Balasz & Ray, 2014)
• The Framework of the Components of Drinking Water Infrastructure (VanDerslice, 2011)
• The Social Determinants of Health (Marmot, 2005; Ratcliff, 2017)