2022 Survey Reveals Parents' Growing Water Quality Concerns

As kids across the country head back to school for fall, we’re sharing more data from our fourth annual Water Quality Survey that shows parents as an involved, knowledgeable group that has become increasingly concerned about water quality over time. 

Following the COVID-19 pandemic, we found that parents are more worried about the overall health of their families — including their access to clean, healthy water. In correlation with increased concern, parents are also willing to take action to understand what’s in their water and how to improve it.

For context, our survey data was collected in March 2022 from a poll of 2,246 U.S. adults, and we’ve compared results from previous years to identify changing views and behaviors within the population. This post focuses on findings specific to parents’ concerns and knowledge about water quality, but for additional insights, you can check out our initial survey report, which reveals broader trends within the general population.

Read on to see how parents’ concern over water quality has changed over time, which contaminants concern them the most, and what they’re doing about it.



The top answer is actually unrelated to water quality — 50% of parents said they use a filter because it’s environmentally friendly. Bottled water is often seen as a trustworthy source for clean drinking water, but that trust has consistently declined over the past three years and the damage plastic bottles cause to the environment is well known. For example, 80% of plastic water bottles end up in landfills and they take 450 years to decompose. Using a water filter helps reduce dependence on plastic bottles, and in 2019 our water filtration systems displaced 1.2 billion plastic bottles of water. To be more environmentally friendly, parents are making the switch to filtering their drinking water at home. The use of water filters for this cause reflects parents' increased interest in helping the environment in general, as 54% of parents this year say they always or often seek out products that are sustainable for the environment.

In second place, the next most common reason parents said they use a filter is because it’s healthier (38% of responses). Water filters are a great way to achieve clean, healthy water at home by removing contaminants that can sometimes make it through the treatment process. In some cases, the chemicals used to treat water are contaminants themselves, such as chlorine and chloramines. A water filter is an extra line of defense to protect against these contaminants, along with others that may be picked up as water travels through pipes to your home, such as lead. Beyond the health benefits, using a filter can also help improve the taste, smell, and appearanceof your home’s tap water.

Rounding out the top three, the next most common reason for parents who said they use a filter is because they claim to have always filtered their water (36%). It appears that some parents adopted water filtration habits so long ago that they’ve forgotten their initial reason for doing so, or it has just become a standard practice for them. The claim that parents have always filtered their water further demonstrates how water quality has consistently been top of mind for this segment over the years when compared to other groups.



Regarding which contaminants concern parents the most, the top three answers received almost equal votes and accounted for a combined 59% of all responses. Chlorine/chloramines were parents’ top concern with 21% of the vote, which was just slightly ahead of lead (20%), followed by pesticides/herbicides (18%). 

Outside the top three answers, parents also showed higher awareness and concern for PFOA/PFOS chemicals. In fact, parents are 88% more likely to be familiar with PFOA/PFOS than non-parents and they’re 50% more likely to select it as their top contaminant concern. These contaminants have gained prominence in recent years, to the point where the EPA recently announced new health advisories and a $1 billion infrastructure bill to help protect against them.

Regardless of which contaminants concern parents the most, we’ve seen that there are several motivations for parents utilizing water filters at home.