Private well stewardship within a rural, agricultural Latino community: a qualitative study.

BACKGROUND: Nitrate contamination in groundwater disproportionately impacts agricultural Latino communities, creating a significant hazard for Latinos that rely on private wells. Private well users must conduct water testing and other well stewardship behaviors to ensure that their well water is safe to drink. This study sought to identify the key factors impacting private well water testing behavior in rural, agricultural Latino communities. METHODS: We conducted 4 focus groups with private well users, 2 in Spanish and 2 in English. We recruited 37 participants from the Lower Yakima Valley, Washington State, a rural, agricultural community with a large Latino population and elevated nitrate concentrations in groundwater. A semi-structured interview guide was developed to capture factors impacting testing as guided by the Risk, Attitudes, Norms, Ability, and Self-Regulation (RANAS) model. Inductive thematic analysis was conducted by two coders to identify common themes. RESULTS: Themes emerged around the factors impacting well stewardship, including well water testing, treatment, and maintenance, and were not specific to nitrate contamination. Private well users reported many of the same factors reported in other communities, with the exception of home repair experience and challenges around landlords and neighbors on shared wells, which have not been reported previously. In addition to landlords and neighbors, lack of actionable information, economic limitations, and lack of technical support emerged as factors that made well stewardship burdensome for individuals. The majority of participants reported using bottled water, including many who used point-of-use or point-of-entry water treatment systems. CONCLUSIONS: The burden of well stewardship in rural, agricultural Latino communities may suggest the need for interventions at the community, county, or state levels and not at the individual level alone. Additionally, the role of landlords, neighbors on shared wells, and home repair experience in well stewardship represent important areas of exploration for researchers and public health practitioners.

Observation of the missing mode effect in a poly-phenylenevinylene derivative: effect of solvent, chain packing, and composition.

Optical emission spectra of poly[2-methoxy-5-[3('),7(')-dimethyloctyloxy)-1,4-phenylenevinylene] (MDMO-PPV) in dilute solutions exhibit a vibronic progression interval (∼1225 cm(-1)) that does not correspond to any ground state vibrational mode frequency. This phenomenon is assigned as the missing mode effect (MIME) in which five key displaced polymer backbone vibrational modes in the range of 800-1600 cm(-1) contribute to the MIME interval. Emission spectra are calculated by analytically solving the time-dependent Schrödinger equation using estimates of mode-specific vibrational displacements determined independently from preresonance Raman intensities. Emission spectra of MDMO-PPV thin films and nanoparticles are measured and lineshapes show an increase of the MIME frequency to ∼1340 cm(-1) in addition to changes in vibronic intensity distributions and energies. Composite blend thin films consisting of MDMO-PPV and a fullerene derivative (1:1 w/w) exhibit a substantially larger MIME interval (∼1450 cm(-1)) that arises from an increase in polymer chain planarity. This structural change is most apparent from large decreases of the excited state displacement of an out-of-plane C-H bending mode (961 cm(-1)) that becomes forbidden in the planar structure.