Objective  To understand the sanitary knowledge, attitude and practice (KAP) of drinking water in community residents in order to supply scientific basis for making further intervention project on supervision and management of drinking water in communities.

Methods  Community residents in Changzhou from 550 households in 55 demonstration communities were selected by random sampling as survey subjects in 2015. The household questionnaire method was used to investigate the sanitary knowledge, attitude and practice of drinking-water in community residents.

Results  A total of 510 valid questionnaires were recovered, and the effective rate was 92.73%. The total awareness rate on the knowledge of drinking-water was 70.84%, the awareness rates for male and female were 66.25% and 75.29%, respectively (χ²=50.371,P=0.000), and the awareness rates for 20~40, 41~60 and >60 year-old residents were 75.44%, 73.49% and 63.75%, respectively (χ²=62.574,P=0.000). The rate for positively participating in activities related to improving the quality of drinking-water in community residents was 66.25% and the rate of caring about the sanitary status of drinking-water in community residents was 75.29%. The waysof gaining hygienic knowledge of drinking-water were advertisement/manual (38.24%), lecture/expert consultation (21.96%) and network (18.82%), and the ways of expecting to get sanitary knowledge of drinking water were lecture/expert consultation (56.08%), wechat (45.10%) and QQ group (36.47%).

Conclusion  The awareness on the sanitary knowledge of drinking-water in community residents should be further improved. Many kinds of propaganda should be taken to popularize the sanitary knowledge of drinking water, as well as to deepen the connotation of the demonstration project for examination the quality of drinking water in communities.