WATER AND HEALTH (T WADE, SECTION EDITOR) Recreational Water and Infection: A Review of Recent Findings

# The Author(s) 2015. This article is published with open access at Springerlink.com Abstract This paper reviews the latest evidence provided by epidemiological studies and quantitative microbial risk assess-ments (QMRAs) of infection risk from recreational water use. Studies for review were selected following a PubMed search for articles published between January 2010 and April 2014. Epidemiological studies show a generally elevated risk of gastrointestinal illness in bathers compared to non-bathers but often no clear association with water quality as measured by faecal indicator bacteria; this is especially true where study sites are impacted by non-point source pollution. Evidence from QMRAs support the lack of a consistent water quality association for non-point source-impacted beaches. It is sug-gested that source attribution, through quantified microbial source apportionment, linked with appropriate use of micro-bial source tracking methods should be employed as an inte-gral part of future epidemiological surveys