Laboratory Capacity Building Round Robins

BETV-SAM has been carrying out interlaboratory Round Robins where several Bangladesh laboratories and field testing agencies receive the same set of samples to analyze and report back to BETV-SAM on a confidential basis. These Round Robins serve to evaluate the current state of data quality from Bangladesh laboratories when analyzing arsenic, iron, manganese and phosphate in well water. Round Robins are used to select analytical laboratories to participate in the BETV-SAM program. Many of these laboratories currently analyze water samples for the BETV-SAM program.

Data from two samples analyzed by each laboratory are plotted below for all paired samples with the individual laboratory codes identified in the legend. Reported data for a Bangladesh well water showed a median value of 16.8 µg/L Arsenic while the same sample fortified with 30 µg/L Arsenic showed a median value of 48.1 µg/L Arsenic. The ellipse shows an approximate 95% confidence interval for the data.

Round Robin Two-Sample Plot

Data from laboratories falling within the ellipse are consistent with each other while data outside the ellipse shows significant differences from the other laboratories. Most of the laboratories and field crews that participated in this round robin performed well with a few exceptions.