IPWR - Water Contamination Events: Communication with Consumers

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Co-Sponsors

The range of water contamination events and responses occuring in large, medium, and community based systems will be considered. Pre- and post-event communication strategies for reaching consumers will also be discussed, including best practices for communicating with diverse communities and special groups. A particular focus is the need to restore consumer trust post-event, particularly when events are persistent and appear chronic.

PROGRAM

Monday, January 30

8:00 a.m.

Welcome and Introduction
Jennie Ward Robinson, Ph.D.
Executive Director, IPWR (USA)

8:15

Setting the Stage: Water Safety Plans and Communication
with the Consumer
Paul Byleveld, Ph.D.
New South Wales Department of Health (Australia) confirmed

• Introduction to the water safety plan approach
• The importance of planning for adverse events and especially communication issues
• How communication issues could fit within water safety plans

8:45

Setting the Stage: Public Right-to-Know Requirements from the National Level
Veronica Blette
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USA)

Session 1: Medium to Large Water Systems

9:15

Contamination Events in Systems with Normally Safe Water
John Gray, Ph.D.
Drinking Water Inspectorate (UK)

• Events/factors influencing the safety of water supplies

9:45

Responding to Acute Contamination Events
J. Alan Roberson, P.E.
American Water Works Association (USA)
Jeanne M. Bailey
Fairfax Water (USA)

• The range of interventions available to utilities and public health agencies, including their advantages and disadvantages in particular settings/events such as ‘boil water advisories’, bottled water, bowsers, and point of use devices
• What the public health message should be, implementation, when it should be issued, and how it should be delivered

10:15

Longer Term/Sporadic Contamination Events
Virginia Murray, FFOM, FRCPath, FRCP, FFPH
Health Protection Agency (UK)

• Introduce the range of adverse events that could affect the safety of water supplies
• Discuss the range of interventions available to utilities and dealing with such longer term/sporadic events
• Discuss what the public health message should be, when it should be issued and how it should be delivered

10:45

Morning Coffee

Session 2: Community Managed Water Systems

11:00

Community Managed Supplies in Latin America
Graciela I. Ramirez-Toro, Ph.D.
Inter American University of Puerto Rico
Harvey A. Minnigh
RHI/RCAP (Puerto Rico)

• Problems facing community managed supplies
• Interventions with community managed supplies
• Strategies for communication

11:30

Community Managed Supplies in Africa
Paul Jagals, DTech:Environmental Health
University of Johannesburg (South Africa)

• Problems facing community managed supplies (South Africa)
• Interventions with community managed supplies
• Strategies for communication

12:00 p.m.

Community Managed Supplies in North America
Steve E. Hrudey, Ph.D., DSc(Eng), PEng
University of Alberta (Canada)

• Problems facing community managed supplies
• Interventions with community managed supplies
• Strategies for communication

12:30

Open Discussion on Sessions 1 & 2
Vincent R. Nathan, Ph.D., MPH
Department of Environmental Affairs
City of Detroit (USA)

1:00

Lunch

Session 3: Symposium – Getting Water and Safety Issues to “Marginalized” Communities

2:00	Native Populations: North America Yolanda Barney Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency (USA)
2:30	Impoverished Communities Eng. Marco Campos CARE (Peru)
3:00	Immigrant Communities Qutub Syed, MBBS, MSc, FFPHM Health Protection Agency NW (UK)
3:30	Round Table Discussion Kenneth Olden, Ph.D. National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (USA)
4:00	Break

Session 4: Communicating to Other Special Groups

4:15

Vulnerable Groups
Phyllis Nsiah-Kumi, M.D.
Northwestern University (USA)

• Key public health messages following an acute or persistent water quality problem
• Communicating with immune suppressed, dialysis patients, the aged & young people

4:45

Health Care Providers
Tee L. Guidotti, M.D., MPH
George Washington University (USA)

• Reaching the clinical, institutional, medical and care delivery communities

5:15

Food Service Industry
Daniel H. Henroid, Jr., MS, RD, CFSP
University of Houston (USA)

• Preparation and Delivery: Risks and Exposures

6:00

7:00

Conference Dinner

Tuesday, January 31

Session 5: Symposium – Communication During Severe Events

8:00 a.m.	Hurricanes Pavani K. Ram, M.D. State University of New York at Buffalo (USA)
9:00	Terrorist attacks/deliberate contaminations Gary Winston, Ph.D. Ministry of Health (Israel)
9:30	Tsunamis Paul Byleveld, Ph.D. NSW Department of Health (New South Wales, Australia)
10:00	Open Discussion
10:30	Morning Coffee

Session 6: Communication Skills

11:00

Getting the Message Across
Patricia A. Kendall, Ph.D., R.D.
Colorado State University (USA)

• Improving communication during acute and persistent contamination

11:30

Communication Strategies
Gabriella Rundblad, Ph.D.
Kings College London (UK)

• Defining & delivery the message: scientific, media, & general public

12:00

Engaging the Media
Dan C. Rutz, MPH
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (USA)

• Strategies for reaching the media and impacting the public during high risk events

12:30

Lunch

2:00

Behaviour Change: Where/When Communication Fails
David F. Drury
Drinking Water Inspectorate (UK)

• Communicating during adverse events to modify behaviours (i.e. are boil water notices effective?)
• What are the specific problems if this follows a single acute event or follows a persistent or recurrent problem?
• Regaining consumer trust: single, persistent and/or recurrent events

2:45

When to Act
Paul R. Hunter, MBA, MD, FRCPath, FFPH
University of East Anglia (UK)

• Timing of contact with consumer
• Intervening with consumer
• Acute/recurrent or persistent events

3:30

Key Messages of the Conference
Paul R. Hunter, MBA, MD, FRCPath, FFPH
University of East Anglia (UK)
Timothy Gilbertson, Ph.D.
Utah State University (USA)

• Rapporteur comments and discussion

4:30

Afternoon Tea and Conference Close

SPEAKER BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCHES
In alphabetical order

Jeanne M. Bailey
Jeanne Bailey has worked in the drinking water community for over twenty years. She currently serves as the Public Affairs Officer for the Fairfax Water, the largest drinking water utility in Virginia serving 1.5 million people in the Washington Metropolitan area. She recently worked for the American Water Works Association in the Government Affairs Office in the area of regulatory development. She has a broad knowledge of water quality and utility operations. She received her bachelor’s degree from George Mason University and holds a Virginia Class 3 Waterworks Operators license.

Yolanda Barney
Yolanda Barney is the Environmental Program Supervisor of the Navajo Public Water Systems Supervision Program (PWSSP). PWSSP is one of fourteen programs of the Navajo Nation Environmental Protection Agency and is responsible for enforcing the Navajo Nation Safe Drinking Water Act and regulations. The staff ensures that all public water system owners/operators provide safe drinking water to the residents of the Navajo Nation. She is responsible for supervision of the inspections of public water system facilities on the Navajo Nation, enforcement, technical assistance and presentations on the importance of safe drinking water.

Veronica Blette
Veronica Blette has served as the Special Assistant to the Director of the Office of Ground Water and Drinking Water, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for the last 3 years. This office implements the Safe Drinking Water Act through the promulgation of regulations, guidance, and other forms of assistance to primarily states and water utilities. In this capacity, she often acts as a liaison between technical staff and senior management on regulatory and other national drinking water issues, develops documents to inform the press and public about drinking water issues, and prepares high level officials for hearings before the US Congress and other public forums. She also participates in an EPA task force charged with responding to last year's devastating hurricanes along the Gulf Coast. Before joining EPA in 1997, she worked in the academic research and environmental consulting fields investigating the effects of atmospheric deposition on terrestrial ecosystems and water quality. She has degrees in Geology from Smith College and the University of Massachusetts.

Paul Byleveld, Ph.D.
Paul Byleveld manages the Water Unit in the New South Wales Department of Health, Australia, which is responsible for public health regulation and advice on drinking water, effluent management, reuse, and recreational waters. His experience working with water supply systems includes incident management following contamination of Sydney drinking water with Cryptosporidium and Giardia (1998), and advice to the subsequent inquiry; helping water utilities investigate and rectify water contamination incidents (including E. coli, Naegleria fowleri, cyanobacteria and toxins, copper, lead, fuel and pesticide); developing protocols to guide public health and water utilities in responding to adverse test results; and helping to develop best practice guidelines to protect small water systems. He has international experience helping to establish and monitor emergency water and sanitation systems in Bougainville (Papua New Guinea), East Timor (Timor Leste), and most recently following the tsunami in Indonesia. He holds a PhD in nutritional immunology and microbiology and an honours degree in biochemistry.

David F. Drury
David Drury is a microbiologist by training and has over 35 years’ experience working within the water industry in the United Kingdom. He has published on a range of topics from microbial tracing to regulations for controlling Cryptosporidium in drinking water. He is currently Drinking Water Science and Strategy Manager with the Drinking Water Inspectorate, the drinking water quality regulator for England and Wales, based in London. A major current responsibility is oversight of the water industry’s introduction of drinking water safety plans.

Timothy A. Gilbertson, Ph.D.
Timothy A. Gilbertson is an Associate Professor and Associate Department Head of Biology at Utah State University. His research focuses on how the body recognizes and responds to nutrients and how this process is tuned to the underlying nutritional needs of an organism. This has implications ranging from basic mechanisms for taste transduction and the design of taste mimetics to post-ingestive nutrient chemoreception and the control of food intake, dietary-induced obesity and diabetes. He has been featured on CNN, Discovery Channel, Discovery Channel-Canada, National Public Radio and insideScience (PBS) and in numerous print media including USA Today, Science News, Boston Globe, and Business Week to discuss the laboratory’s research on the chemosensory cues for dietary fat and its relation to obesity. He is the Chair of the Health and Scientific Advisory Board of the IPWR and a member of the Executive Board of Directors.

John Gray Ph.D.
John Gray is the Deputy Chief Inspector of the Drinking Water Inspectorate (Operations) and has been a "practitioner" for 22 years and a regulator since 1993. He has gained wide experience in the water supply industry including the treatment of different quality waters; sampling; chemical, bacteriological and microbiological analysis; regulatory reporting; the design and commissioning of water treatment works and the maintenance of distribution systems. As a regulator, he gained experience both through the technical audit of water companies and the investigation of incidents affecting drinking water quality. He has investigated a number of high profile outbreaks of cryptosporidiosis and represented the Inspectorate’s interests in research funded by DWI into sporadic cases of cryptosporidiosis in the North West of England. A significant part of his responsibility has been presenting the Inspectorate’s work to the media (radio, television and press), including annual reports and the outcome of a number of court cases. National security issues have represented an increased proportion of his work since September 2001.

Tee L. Guidotti, M.D., MPH
Tee L Guidotti is currently Acting Director of the Center for Risk Science and Pubic Health and Chair of the Department of Environmental and Occupational Health, The George Washington University Medical Center. His contributions to risk science have emphasized the impact on a community of perceived cancer risk, setting priorities in risk management and the application of scientific knowledge in law and workers’ compensation. He is currently working in the area of “risk anticipation”, the systematic identification of likely problems and preparations to deal with them before they surface as social issues. He is well known internationally and has worked on projects for the World Health Organization, the International Labour Organization, the World Bank, Health Canada, the Institute of Medicine and numerous local agencies. His latest book is Science on the Witness Stand: Applying Scientific Evidence to Law, Adjudication and Policy. Dr Guidotti has many years of experience in risk communication at the community level in Canada, the United States, Zambia and aboriginal communities in North America.

Daniel Henroid, Jr., MS, RD, CFSP
Daniel Henroid is an assistant professor in the Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management at the University of Houston (UH) where he teaches courses in food safety and sanitation, food purchasing, and retail food safety systems. In addition to his teaching, he is assisting school districts and other retail food establishments implement food safety systems based on hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) and has done more than 20 training sessions in Texas and Iowa. Prior to UH, he was the state Extension Foodservice and Lodging Management specialist at Iowa State University where he coordinated two statewide food safety training programs for Extension field specialists using the ServSafe® and SuperSafeMark® programs for restaurant and grocery managers. He has been actively conducting applied food safety research on handwashing compliance, food safety information systems, and retail food safety systems based on hazard analysis critical control point (HACCP) principles. He was recently a co-principal investigator on a 3-year USDA grant project working with Iowa school districts to HACCP-based systems from 2001-2004. Through this project, numerous tools, training modules, and resources for school foodservice operators to implement HACCP were developed. He also was the principal investigator for the “Ask a Food Safety Expert” project, a free, web-based, food safety question and answer service (http://www.foodsafetyanswers.org). He is a member of the International Association for Food Protection, the National Environmental Health Association, the American Dietetic Association, and the Conference for Food Protection.

Steve E. Hrudey, Ph.D., DSc(Eng), PEng
Steve E. Hrudey is Professor of Environmental Health Sciences in the Faculty of Medicine and Dentistry, University of Alberta, Canada, and Honorary Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at Australia’s Monash University. He served on the Research Advisory Panel to the Walkerton Inquiry, was an architect of the catchment-to-consumer risk management approach of the 2004 Australian Drinking Water Guidelines, was the founding Leader of the Protecting Public Health theme for the Canadian Water Network and now serves on the Science Advisory Council to the National Collaborating Centres of the Public Health Agency of Canada. His latest book “Safe Drinking Water – Lessons from Recent Outbreaks in Affluent Countries” provides an analysis of 73 case studies from 15 countries. The Provincial Cabinet appointed him as Chair and CEO of the Alberta Environmental Appeals Board in July 2005.

Paul R. Hunter, MBA, MD, FRCPath, FFPH
Paul Hunter, a practicing physician and international authority on water and health, developed an early interest in infection related to food and water and has been involved in the investigation of many food and waterborne outbreaks. His main research interests are in waterborne disease and environmental epidemiology. Prior to joining the University of East Anglia, Norwich, England, where he is currently Professor, he was Consultant in Medical Microbiology, and from 1988 to 2001 was the Director of the Chester Public Health Laboratory. In 1999, he served as the Chair of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD)/World Health Organization expert group: Approaches to establishing links between drinking water and infectious disease. In 2002 and 2003, he served on the OECD expert group: Emerging Risks to Global Water Supplies. He was also a member of the U. K. Advisory Committee on the Microbiological Safety of Food. He currently serves as the European Editor of the Journal of Water and Health, a joint publication of the World Health Organization and the International Water Association. He is the Chair of the Executive Board of Directors of the IPWR.

Paul Jagals, DTech: Environmental Health
Paul Jagals heads the Water and Health Research Unit at the (very new) University of Johannesburg, South Africa. He is professor in Environmental Health and holds a Doctorate in Environmental Health. He has extensive experience in primary health care and its link to water care and community water supplies. Since joining academia more than a decade ago, he specialised in finding ways to effectively link water safety to human health in the Southern African context and to develop effective ways to optimise water supply and sanitation interventions.

Patricia A. Kendall, Ph.D., R.D.
Patricia Kendall joined the Department of Food Science and Human Nutrition, Colorado State University, in 1976 as a Cooperative Extension Specialist. In this position, she works with extension agents, teachers, graduate students and nutrition and agricultural professionals across Colorado in developing, implementing and evaluating programs in the areas of foods, nutrition and food safety. For the past several years, she has emphasized developing, implementing and evaluating programs and research projects on communicating with consumers about health risks, including risks associated with the safety of the food supply. She is the current president of the Society for Nutrition Education and is a member of the IPWR Health and Scientific Advisory Board.

Eng. Marco Campos
Marco Campos is a civil engineer with extensive and successful experience using appropriate technologies both in construction and in water and sanitation community projects. Between 1987 and 2003, the external evaluations conducted on the projects designed and managed by him while in CARE (1) Peru, demonstrated, not only, sanitary infrastructure sustainability but an impressive impact on beneficiaries’ lives by improving their living conditions and their environment. The water programs success provided CARE the opportunity to conduct the Pilot Project for the National Rural Water and Sanitation Program for the Government of Peru through PROPILAS (2), a project under continuous operation since 1999. Marco Campos has presented the Peruvian experience in water and sanitation at the last two meetings convened by the World Health Organization (WHO) to discuss water safety plans for small communities.

1. CARE is an international, non-profit and non-sectarian private organization working in developing programs in third world countries.
2. PROPILAS stands for “Proyecto Piloto de Agua y Saneamiento”.

Harvey Minnigh
Mr. Minnigh has more than thirty years experience working in public and private water, wastewater and solid waste systems in the continental U.S., Central and South America, and in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands. He currently works for a Rural Community Assistance Program, providing technical assistance to very small to large potable water systems. Mr. Minnigh is the author and co-author of major research reports for Federal, state and local agencies including the US Environmental Protection Agency, as well as several universities. He researches and publishes in environmental microbiology, ecology and water quality and treatment. He is a member of national Environmental Protection Agency workgroups and committees, in both Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Island. His expertise is in environmental microbiology, the design, administration, management and operation of water and wastewater systems and facilities for the interment, conversion and reclamation of solid wastes.

Virginia Murray, FFOM, FRCPath, FRCP, FFPH
Virginia Murray trained in medicine before joining the Guy’s Poisons Unit, London in 1980. In 1989, she started the Chemical Incident Research Programme and was the Director of the Chemical Incident Response Service from 1996. This service supported, via Service Level Agreements, all health authorities in six of the eight NHSE Regions and their population of approximately 37.5 million. Since April 2003 she works for the Health Protection Agency’s Chemical Hazards and Poisons Division (London). She has considerable experience in advising on the toxicological aspects of response to acute and chronic chemical incidents, both accidental and deliberate, and has undertaken research and published widely on the issues identified. She also leads on training for the Chemical Hazards and Poisons Division. She is the Visiting Professor in Public Health Protection at King’s College, London.

Vincent R. Nathan, Ph.D., MPH
Vincent R. Nathan is the Director of the city of Detroit, Department of Environmental Affairs. He was previously the Deputy Director for Environmental Health at the District of Columbia, Department of Health (DCDOH). He manages a staff whose duties vary from inspections and education to enforcement programs that directly affect public health and safety. His office also provides local oversight of federal programs to protect the quality of air, water, soil, and other environmental issues. He has participated in local, regional and national occupational and environmental health research and regulatory compliance and policy projects. He served as the minority health program manager in the Office of Urban Affairs, Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry and as adjunct professor at the Morehouse School of Medicine. He was a fellow with the American Association for the Advancement of Science, serving as Senior Scientist in the Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C.; was a fellow in the King/Chavez/Parks Faculty Program at Michigan State University; and is a member of the IPWR Health and Scientific Advisory Board.

Phyllis Nsiah-Kumi, M.D.
Phyllis Nsiah-Kumi is an internist, pediatrician and health services research fellow in the Division of General Internal Medicine, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago, Illinois. Her research interests include cross-cultural communication in medical settings and health disparities in diabetes care based on race/ethnicity. She has previously conducted research on intestinal parasites in Tansen, Nepal in conjunction with the Cleveland Clinic Foundation. She is currently investigating cross-cultural communication in health care, focusing on training health care providers to effectively use interpreters in medical settings and understanding barriers to effective cross-cultural patient-provider communication.

Kenneth Olden, Ph.D.
Kenneth Olden served as the third Director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the second Director of the National Toxicology Program, 1991-2005. He is a cell biologist and biochemist by training and has been active in cancer research for almost three decades. Prior to joining the NIH, he was director of the Howard University Cancer Center and professor and chairman of the Department of Oncology at Howard University Medical Center. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 publications. In 2003, he received an honorary doctorate of science degree from the University of Rochester and an honorary doctorate of humane letters degree from the College of Charleston. Presently, he is the Chief, Cell Adhesion and Metastasis Section, Intramural Research Program, NIEHS, NIH. He is also a member of the Executive Board of Directors of the IPWR.

Pavani K. Ram, M.D.
Pavani Ram is an internist who recently joined the Department of Social and Preventive Medicine, School of Public Health and Health Professions, University of Buffalo, Buffalo, New York, where she is initiating research on household technologies for the prevention of diarrheal and respiratory diseases. Previously, she served as a Medical Epidemiologist and was a member of the Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS), Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch, National Center for Infectious Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). She has extensive international experience in the use of Safe Water System (SWS), a point of use water treatment and storage strategy to reduce diarrheal disease, including work in Afghanistan, Burkina Faso, India, Bangladesh, Zambia, Cote d’Ivoire, and the Philippines.

Graciela I. Ramírez-Toro, Ph.D.
Graciela I. Ramírez-Toro is Director of the Center for Environmental Education, Conservation and Research of Interamerican University of Puerto Rico (CECIA-IAU). In this role, she oversees the integration of environmental topics in all academic programs of the University and promotes community outreach and a research program leading to the integration of scientists, government and community in the investigation and remediation of environmental problems in Puerto Rico, the Continental US and Europe. She has consulted with State, Commonwealth and Federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, and has served on the National Drinking Water Advisory Council and the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council. She has over 200 publications in environmental science and was recognized with the Environmental Water Quality Award from Region II US EPA for the development of CECIA programs.

J. Alan Roberson, P.E.
Alan Roberson is currently the Director of Security and Regulatory Affairs at the American Water Works Association (AWWA) Washington, D.C. office. He is responsible for implementing AWWA's overall regulatory program with all U.S. federal agencies including the Environmental Protection Agency, United States Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, United States Geological Survey, United States Department of Agriculture, etc. He and his technical staff work closely with EPA staff on the development of drinking water security policies and national drinking water regulations. He is a licensed trainer for the Risk Assessment Methodology-Water (RAM-W) and has developed a two-day workshop on contamination monitoring technologies. He has twelve years consulting engineering experience with the design and project management for site development and water treatment projects. He has a Bachelor's in Civil Engineering from Georgia Tech and a master's degree in Civil Engineering from Virginia Tech. He is a Professional Engineer in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

Gabriella Rundblad, Ph.D
Gabriella Rundblad is Lecturer in Applied Linguistics at King’s College London and was previously at the University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK. She is a lexico-semanticist with a cognitive and psycho-linguistic focus. Current research projects include cognitive linguistic approaches in discourse analysis of health communication, and lingusitic and cognitive development in children (both typical and atypical). She currently serves on the governing board of the UK Cognitive Linguistics Association. She trained at Stockholm University.

Daniel C. Rutz, MPH
Daniel Rutz is a Special Assistant for Communications, Office of the Director, National Center for Infectious Diseases (NCID), Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) where he develops policy for NCID and CDC response to bioterrorism and preparedness plans for specific infectious agents as well as emerging infections of natural origin, e.g., avian influenza. He coordinates emergency preparedness communication activities with the US Department of Health and Human Services and establishes associations and collaborative opportunities with domestic and international public health communications partners including other federal government departments. For 18 years, he was Senior Health and Medical Correspondent and Managing Editor for CNN, Turner Broadcasting System. In that position, he produced or broadcast over 2500 national and international reports for television, radio and the internet and co-hosted and produced a weekly 30 minute medical news program.

Qutubuddin Syed, MBBS, MSc, FFPHM
Qutubuddin Syed is the Director of the Health Protection Agency North West. His responsibilities include oversight of the development of health protection services for the population of the North West region in collaboration with other agencies including the Strategic Health Authorities (StHA), Primary Care Trusts (PCTs), National Health Service (NHS), Department of Health Government Offices for the North West (GONW), Food Standards Agency (FSE), Environment Agency (EA), Department of Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA). The Health Protection Agency North West works closely with academic partners including The University of Liverpool, (including the veterinary school), Liverpool John Moores University, University of Central Lancashire and Salford and Manchester Universities amongst others.

Gary W. Winston, Ph.D.
Gary Winston is the Chief Toxicologist, Department of Environmental Health, Israel Ministry of Health, Jerusalem, and Adjunct Professor, Program in Environmental Sciences, Hebrew University. Previously, he served as Professor and Chair, Department of Biochemistry, Louisiana State University (1992-97), and Professor and Head, Department of Toxicology, North Carolina State University (1997-2000). He is the author of over 100 referred publications and has reviewed grant applications for many U.S. research funding organizations including the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, and the National Geographic Society Grants Program. Additionally, he is a member of the Committee on Drinking Water Standards and the Food Safety Evaluation Committee for the Ministry of Health of Israel.