A University of Arizona study suggests Tucson families may be living with the mental health fallout from a water contamination crisis on the city's south side.
About one-third of people who drank the contaminated water report symptoms that reach a screening threshold for post-traumatic stress.
Here's what to know
University of Arizona researchers published their findings in the Journal of Health Psychology and reported that 34% of surveyed people exposed before 1981 to groundwater polluted by industrial solvents met the study's post-traumatic stress screening threshold, according to an article shared on Phys.org.
To reach that cutoff, respondents had to report at least four of seven symptoms in the previous month tied to concern about the contamination. Those symptoms included trouble sleeping, avoiding reminders of the contamination, and feeling disconnected from other people. The survey included 363 people who had lived, worked, or attended school in the affected area before 1981, or whose parents had.
The study was a collaboration between the Department of Psychology and the Mel and Enid Zuckerman College of Public Health. It was led by Harrison Schmitt, an assistant professor of psychology at Skidmore College, as part of his University of Arizona dissertation.
More background
Beginning in the summer of 2022, about 20 undergraduate volunteers carried out the survey by going door to door in pairs.
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Residents' answers indicate that the contamination's effects have remained present long after the polluted water was removed from Tucson's south side.
Daniel Sullivan, the study's senior author and an associate professor in the University of Arizona Department of Psychology, studies what are often described as technological disasters, crises that develop over long periods rather than arriving in a single visibly destructive moment.
Before the survey took shape, Sullivan spent years attending community meetings on Tucson's south side.
"It was pretty striking how long the impact of this seems to have been," Sullivan said, per the University of Arizona.
Using that same screening measure, Sullivan's team also evaluated Los Angeles residents whose homes were threatened by wildfires in 2025. About 35% met the threshold, a rate that closely matched the Tucson result.
Where can I learn more?
Other communities have faced their own drinking water contamination crises and the long fallout that followed.
• In Los Angeles, residents found toxic material in tap water after years of complaints.
• In Crook County, Oregon, state tests found distressing results in home wells near homes.
• In Michigan, Wenke Greenhouses' neighbors faced toxic "forever chemicals" in drinking water.
• On Long Island, New York, a business owner faced a nearly $90,000 fix for tainted well water.
• An EPA report traced a public health disaster to drinking water serving millions.
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