Public health assessment via wastewater-based epidemiology: a case study during SARS-CoV-2 pandemic

: (Alternative Format Thesis)

Abstract

In the last decade, Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) has been growing in popularity because it provides, as opposed to conventional epidemiology approaches, a more comprehensive, non-invasive, near real-time, and cost-effective measure of a community’s health and lifestyle, while respecting the privacy of individuals. This work focusses on the utilisation of WBE as an epidemiology tool aimed at understanding health status, lifestyle habits and exposure to chemicals during SARS-CoV-2 pandemics in South West England. Two towns and two cities were monitored 2 years, between April 2020 and March 2022, to verify trends in intake of pain treatment pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, and personal care products. Two samples per week of influent wastewater were collected at four different water recycling centres (WRCs) using time and flow proportional samples. Results highlighted higher usage of pain medications during lockdowns and periods of higher SARS-CoV-2 cases, especially ibuprofen and acetaminophen (used at first instance to reduce symptoms and side effects of vaccine); illicit drugs, caffeine, nicotine and body pain related drugs lowered because of restrictions on place that limited social interactions and physical activity, while personal care products changed with restrictions and weather conditions. The application of WBE workflow allowed to obtain a wider overview on population intake of certain markers as proxy of health status, indication of lifestyle choices and exposure to chemicals, showing the potential of WBE to achieve near-real time monitoring to evaluate health status of communities and to provide comprehensive data for decision makers and institutions to plan interventions.

Date of Award	26 Jun 2024
Original language	English
Awarding Institution	University of Bath
Supervisor	Kishore Jagadeesan (Supervisor), Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern (Supervisor), Julie Barnett (Supervisor) & Ruth Barden (Supervisor)