Health Officials Urge Recreational Water Measures

To help local governments recover their recreational water services to pre-recessionary levels, the National Association of County and City Health Officials supported a series of efforts to promote healthy and safe swimming. During the economic downturn, 13.6 percent of surveyed local health departments reduced or eliminated recreational water services. “Water services saw the third-largest reductions in health departments, behind food safety and vector control,” a NACCHO report stated. The group urged incorporation of the Model Aquatic Health Code into local health policies, as well as improvement of regulatory oversight of recreational waters, implementation of standardized, uniform recreational water-testing guidelines across health departments, better community education, and increased funding for the surveillance of recreational water environments and investigation of recreational water illness outbreaks, drownings and other incidents.