Presenter: Roy Vore, Ph.D.
Monday, January 27, 10:15 a.m. – 11:15 a.m.
1 Hour | 1 PHTA CEU | 0.1 IACET CEU
Summary
The forgotten history of pool sanitation is leading to millions of RWI cases every year. Sanitation regiments for U.S. pools began around 1918. Very active programs among the sanitarians of the American Public Health Association from the 1910s through 1964 have provided a huge cache of practical information on how and why swimming pools must be managed to protect the health of swimmers.
But absolutely none of that information is present in our current operating manuals – including the Pool & Spa Operator Handbook, which is the world’s most commonly used manual on pool operation. Two examples:
- A recent article from the CDC (Gerdes, et al, 2023) identified dermal infections as the leading type of RWIs. Ear infections alone are estimated to cause 5,700,000 cases and cost the public $536,000,000 each year. These easily preventable illnesses dwarf all other RWIs. When were dermal infections first identified as a major concern? 1921! (Simons, et al, 1924, AJPH 14(7)597-602). Yet, these barely get mentioned in the CDC outbreak reports or the CPO Handbook compared to Cryptosporidium and secondary disinfection systems.
- OTO methods were deleted from Standards Methods, 14th ed. in 1975 “because of poor accuracy and precision and high overall (average) total error in comparison with other available methods...” Why do we still see references in our talks and trade articles as well as in the MAHC to old studies that used OTO? Has the focus in our training gone so far to HOW to run a pool that we have lost WHY we do each aspect of management?
This talk will examine the forgotten history lessons of pool management that must be included in our future training class. Otherwise, our pools will be condemned to a repeating cycle of easily prevented illness and expense.
Learning Objectives
- Learn how our present pool operations have slowly evolved for the last 100 years.
- Learn that the scientific literature throughout the 20th century has been forgotten and key lessons are not included in our present training materials.
- Understand that proposed operational parameters must be supportable by reliable science, or inadvertent negative consequences can and will result.
Presenter Bio
Dr. Roy Vore has been a CPO and PHTA CPO Instructor for over a decade. He began developing treatments for microbial growth in recreational water in 1991. Roy was a major contributor to the Disinfection Water Quality module of the CDC's MAHC, and the lead author of PHTA's RWI handbook. Roy holds a Ph.D. in bacterial physiology in addition to a master’s and bachelor's in microbiology. He has over 100 scholarly papers and presentations on the selection and use of industrial biocides, biocide testing methodology, the microbiology of swimming pools and spas, and the governmental regulation of biocides.
