Team:Hong Kong-CUHK/iQuestionnaire
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International Questionnaire
Purpose:
We were honoured to be cooperating with universities around the world to do this international questionnaire. The cooperating universities include Technische Universität Berlin, Beijing Institute of Technology, Universidade de São Paulo, Chang Gung University, University of Leicester, Université de Toulouse, Tianjin University, Kungliga Tekniska högskolan, Karolinska Institutet and University College London. We aimed to collect opinions from people around the world on the application of our project. Recently, there was a controversial discussion over the problem of contamination of lead in water tap supplying water to household in Hong Kong. Therefore, the concern from the Hong Kong society on water quality has raised and we want to observe results from other countries to see if they are also concerning the water quality problem in their countries or not, or how serious they perceived this problem.
Method:
We distributed the questionnaire from middle August to late August. The method we used to distribute the questionnaire is online-distribution. The questionnaire contains questions from all the above-mentioned universities. And we are able to receive responses from other countries with the help of oversea collaborating university. As we may not be able to receive responses thoroughly from the world if we just online-distribute by ourselves, it is essential to cooperate with these universities to observe the result more accurately from other countries.
Result:
We focus on the opinion difference across countries.
We have asked three questions related to the importance and application of water filter to examine their opinions towards water treatment, which is one of the applications of our project. All of the three questions are ranking questions. The range is from 1(the most negative) to 6(the most positive).
The three questions concern:
Q1. the degree of satisfaction of the respondents toward the current quality of drinking water;
Q2. the degree of the respondents wishing to lower the levels of heavy metals in drinking water;
Q3. the degree of willingness of the respondents to install a small ‘heavy metals water-filter’ at home.
General
We received 473 responses from Hong Kong and Taiwan, 77 responses from Brazil, 13 responses from France, 563 responses in total.
Over 80% participants are not quite satisfied with the water quality as they ranked 4 or below in the Q1. Over 80% of participants ranked 4 or above for Q2, which indicates that level of heavy metals is one of the major concern of water quality and participants are not satisfied with current situation. Over 70% of participants ranked 4 or above in Q3, which indicates that they are willing to install a heavy metal water filter at home. It may due to the fact that they are concerned about the intake of heavy metal from drinking water.
Regional difference
The average score of the satisfaction on the water quality is 3.57, which indicates that the participants are not so satisfied with the water quality. The average score of Taiwan & Hong Kong and Brazil are 3.54 and 3.49 respectively, which are similar to the average score. However, there is a significant difference between the average score of the overall participants and that of the France, which score 5. It suggests that the respondents from France are more satisfied with the water quality due to either a better water quality in France or they have a lower standard on water quality. There would be a further study on the reasons of the differences in the average score so that we can better understand the perspectives of the participants on water quality and a more affirmative conclusion can be drawn. The participants from France care about the further decrease of the heavy metals least and they are also least willing to install a small “heavy metal water filter” at home. The average scores are 5 and 4.5 while the overall average score is 5.28 and 4.77 respectively. It may mainly due to the fact that they are satisfied with current water quality, when comparing to participants from other regions. The difference of water treatment between France and other developed countries is probably another contributing factor of the relatively higher satisfactory level of water quality in France, where private sectors participated actively in water treatment and these companies provide high quality of water to the people. Therefore, it is possible that the French are satisfied with the water quality and not so willing to install water filter compared to participant from other region.
Age difference
Beside the regional difference, the difference between participants with different ages is examined. Participants who aged 41-50 years old are least satisfied with the water quality but they are not intended to have a further reduction in heavy metal and not willing to install a small “heavy metal water filter” at home. They score 3.27, 5.27 and 4.8 for the three questions while the overall average score is 3.57, 5.28 and 4.77. The participants aged 26-30 are wishing to decrease the level of heavy metal most and most willing to install a small “heavy metal water filter” at home. The respondents of 10-20 years old are most satisfied with the water quality and so they are the least willing group to install water filter. There would be a further study on what is the most considering factor about the water quality. The participants may concern about the waterborne pathogens more than the heavy metal and thus they score a bit lower in Q2 and Q3.
Conclusion:
From the above result, French care least for the water quality and least willing to install water filter at home, while the results of Hong Kong & Taiwan and Brazil show the similar pattern that they are quite concerning about the water quality and more willing to install water filter when compared to France. When considering different age groups, respondents from 41-50 age group are least satisfied with water quality but they are not willing to install water filter, whereas respondents of 10-20 years old are most satisfied with water quality and least willing to install water filter. After understanding the opinion of the public, we can adjust the focus of our project to persuade people and raise the acceptance of our project. On top of that, we can focus more on the harmful effects of the heavy metal on our health and thus, the public can have a chance to acknowledge the importance of the heavy metal filter.
