The public health reason to stop worrying and love the city supply. Imagine seeing a news report about lead contamination in drinking water in a community that looks like yours. It might make you think twice about whether to drink your tap water or serve it to your kids – especially if you also have experienced tap water problems in the past. In a new study, my colleagues Anisha Patel, Francesca Weaks, and I estimate that approximately 61.4 million people in the U.S. did not drink their tap water as of 2017-2018. Our research, which was released in preprint format on April 8, 2021, and has not yet been peer-reviewed, found that this number has grown sharply in the past several years. Other research has shown that about 2 million Americans don’t have access to clean water. Taking that into account, our findings suggest that about 59 million people have tap water access from either their municipality or private wells or cisterns, but don’t drink it. While some may have contaminated water, others may be avoiding water that’s actually safe. Water insecurity is an under recognized but growing problem in the U.S. Tap water distrust is part of the problem. And it’s critical to understand what drives it, because people who don’t trust their tap water shift to more expensive and often less healthy options, like bottled water or sugary drinks. I’m a human biologist and have studied water and health for the past decade in places as diverse as Lowland Bolivia and northern Kenya. Now I run the Water, Health, and Nutrition Laboratory at Pennsylvania State University. To understand water issues, I talk to people and use large datasets to see whether a problem is unique or widespread, and stable, or growing…”