Digging a well or accessing water through pipes does not necessarily mean a household in the developing world will have safer drinking water than if they used more traditional – and traditionally unprotected – water sources. In fact, fecal contamination still occurs in about 25 percent of water from improved sources. These are the findings of a new analysis conducted by researchers at The Water Institute at the University of North Carolina, based in the Gillings School of Global Public Health, and published May 6 in PLOS Medicine. Mr. Robert Bain, visiting scholar at The Water Institute at UNC, and Dr. Jamie Bartram, Don and Jennifer Holzworth Distinguished Professor of environmental sciences and engineering and director of The Water Institute, led the study.