供水专业人士对此相当感兴趣 公共卫生保护在多大程度上由 根据 美国环境保护局（USEPA）的安全饮用 水法。这一兴趣是因为 管理和预算压力迫使联邦机构发展 跟踪每项工作进展的通用绩效指标 监管计划。 制定明确、有意义的衡量标准是一项挑战 美国环保局（USEPA）联邦政府等公共部门实体的进展 饮用水管理计划。限制是内在的 相关的公共卫生数据，很难对其进行定性 公共卫生统计中可观察到的饮用水或 其他可能的致病因素。此外，绩效指标 容易计数的数据可能会将结果导向错误的方向， 而指标更倾向于 最终想要的结果（例如，更好的健康）可能是数不清的 或者不容易理解。 本文提供了一个关于绩效指标的有用视角 并建议如何使用这些指标 适用于饮用水监管计划，以定义 监测和相关数据收集要求。包括8个参考文献，图。

Considerable interest exists among water supply professionals in how well public health protections are generated by the federal drinking water regulatory program as administered under the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) Safe Drinking Water Act. This interest is heightened because of Office of Management and Budget pressure on federal agencies to develop common performance measures to track the progress of every regulatory program. It is challenging to devise clear, meaningful measures of progress for public sector entities such as the USEPA's federal drinking water regulatory program. Limitations are inherent in the relevant public health data, and it is difficult to attribute any observable trend in public health statistics to drinking water or other possible causal agents. In addition, performance measures that are easily countable may steer results in the wrong direction, whereas indicators that are more oriented toward the ultimate desired outcomes (e.g., better health) may be uncountable or not easily interpreted. This article offers a useful perspective on performance indicators and recommends ideas for how such indicators might be applied to the drinking water regulatory program for defining the monitoring and related data collection requirements. Includes 8 references, figure.