Objectives To explore the relationship of incidence of gastrointestinal disorders with domestic drinking water quality, residents' hygienic habit and general situation in part rural areas of Beijing so as to provide scientific evidence of improving drinking water quality, and health status of rural residents.

Methods 75 rural water supply units were randomly sampled for the detections of domestic water quality in three counties of Beijing. 3864 individuals were recruited for the survey. The information of incidence of gastrointestinal disorders with general situation such as age, gender, as well as education degree, and specific hygienic habit related with drinking water was inquired from rural dwellers nearby the supply units with 3 years and above. All the data were input for the database with Epidata version 3.1 and analyzed with SPSS version 13.0. Descriptive statistical analysis was employed for the drinking water quality; logistic regression of single factor and multi-factor analyses were employed on the correlation of incidence of the gastrointestinal disorders with domestic drinking water quality, living habits and general situation.

Results A total of 75 centralized water supply facilities were surveyed.The drinking water quality compliance rate is low (56.00%). It is the excess microbial organisms out of the standard limits (the microbial indicators of water quality) that were positively correlated with the incidence of gastrointestinal disorders (OR=2.544, P < 0.001).It is not confident to say that age, gender, education level, and residents' hygienic habits affect the occurrence of gastrointestinal disorders (P > 0.05).

Conclusions The qualification of microbial indicators of water quality were correlated with the gastrointestinal disorders in part of rural areas of Beijing. It is necessary to intensify the projects on renovation of drinking water in rural areas, and guarantee the safety of rural drinking water so as to reduce the incidence of gastrointestinal disorders.