![]() The World Wide Web Consortium identifies 22 laws mandating WCAG 2.0 or WCAG 2.0-derivative standards for public or private sector use in nations like Australia, Canada, Denmark, India, Israel, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, as well as the European Union (World Wide Web Consortium, 2018). However, the WCAG 2.0 standards are used globally as legal accessibility standards in the public and private sectors. ![]() 2 Because CCRs are issued locally by water utilities and not by EPA, this federal rule does not apply to their content. However, most CCRs suffer from fundamental challenges making them inaccessible to those with limited internet access, visual impairment, and low literacy as well as non-native English speakers.įederal rulemaking finalized in 2018 to Section 508 of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973 mandates that documents and web content produced by federal agencies comply with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG 2.0) maintained by the World Wide Web Consortium. These methods can increase access to water quality reports. Since the approval for web-based delivery of Consumer Confidence Reports (CCRs) by the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2013 (Grevatt, 2013), water utilities can now email their reports to customers or share links to CCRs on official websites as part of their required distribution and for “good faith” efforts to reach non-bill paying consumers. 1 Mistrust of tap water is linked to decreased water consumption and the use of expensive or unhealthy substitutes such as bottled water and sugary beverages, respectively, creating a vicious cycle of inequity and mistrust (Onufrak et al., 2014). Prior research has found a clear link between effective, timely communication with customers and their perception of the organization as trustworthy (Evans and Carpenter, 2019) accessible CCRs are a critical element of a utility's trust-building efforts. ![]() As one of the few mandated non-crisis communication to customers, CCRs present a meaningful opportunity for water systems to share information about water quality, public health, and community concerns. According to the EPA, CCRs are intended to “improve public health protection by providing educational material to allow consumers to make educated decisions regarding any potential health risk pertaining to the quality, treatment, and management of their drinking water supply” (USEPA, 2009). are required to issue a water quality report annually (more formally, consumer confidence report or CCR) and make it publicly accessible as per the Safe Drinking Water Act. Accessible and easy-to-understand CCRs can achieve all that and build customer trust. However, accessibility scores were correlated with utility size, racial composition, and the presence of bilingual speakers. Our analysis found that water utilities of all sizes, customer demographics, and geographic locations scored poorly on each measure of accessibility. In this paper, we analyze a representative sample of 268 CCRs to measure their accessibility along three dimensions: adherence to Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.0 standards, their Flesch Reading Ease score, and the availability of translation to non-English languages. CCRs are ineffective at communicating risk and safety information to the customers for several reasons: they are hard to find and poorly advertised, present complex scientific data at a high reading level, and are written predominantly in English. are required to annually issue a water quality report (more formally, consumer confidence report or CCR) and make it publicly accessible.
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