Online dashboards for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater data need standard best practices: An environmental health communication agenda

The COVID-19 pandemic has highlighted the benefits of wastewater surveillance to supplement clinical data. Numerous online information dashboards have been rapidly, and typically independently, developed to communicate environmental surveillance data to public health officials and the public. In this study, we review dashboards presenting SARS-CoV-2 wastewater data and propose a path toward harmonization and improved risk communication. A list of 127 dashboards representing 27 countries was compiled. The variability was high and encompassed aspects including the graphics used for data presentation (e.g., line/bar graphs, maps, and tables), log versus linear scale, and 96 separate ways of labeling SARS-CoV-2 wastewater concentrations. Globally, dashboard presentations also differed by region. Approximately half of the dashboards presented clinical case data, and 25% presented variant monitoring. Only 30% of dashboards provided downloadable source data. While any single dashboard is likely useful in its own context and locality, the high variation across dashboards at best prevents optimal use of wastewater surveillance data on a broader geographical scale and at worst could lead to risk communication issues and the potential for public health miscommunication. There is a great opportunity to improve scientific communication through the adoption of uniform data presentation conventions, standards, and best practices in this field

Standardizing data reporting in the research community to enhance the utility of open data for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance

SARS-CoV-2 RNA detection in wastewater is being rapidly developed and adopted as a public health monitoring tool worldwide. With wastewater surveillance programs being implemented across many different scales and by many different stakeholders, it is critical that data collected and shared are accompanied by an appropriate minimal amount of meta-information to enable meaningful interpretation and use of this new information source and intercomparison across datasets. While some databases are being developed for specific surveillance programs locally, regionally, nationally, and internationally, common globally-adopted data standards have not yet been established within the research community. Establishing such standards will require national and international consensus on what meta-information should accompany SARS-CoV-2 wastewater measurements. To establish a recommendation on minimum information to accompany reporting of SARS-CoV-2 occurrence in wastewater for the research community, the United States National Science Foundation (NSF) Research Coordination Network on Wastewater Surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 hosted a workshop in February 2021 with participants from academia, government agencies, private companies, wastewater utilities, public health laboratories, and research institutes. This report presents the primary two outcomes of the workshop: (i) a recommendation on the set of minimum meta-information that is needed to confidently interpret wastewater SARS-CoV-2 data, and (ii) insights from workshop discussions on how to improve standardization of data reporting

Exploring the Expanding Impact of a Sustainable Development Engineering Course Through a Critical Evolutionary Review

Exploring the Expanding Impact of a Sustainable Development Engineering Course Through a Critical Evolutionary Review A Sustainable Development Engineering course (cross listed in the College of PublicHealth as Water Pollution and Treatment) has evolved over seven years at this university toincorporate interdisciplinary groups of graduate students to engage in critical thinking andproblem solving. The objectives of the course are to 1) apply engineering fundamentals andappropriate technology in design, construction, operation, and maintenance of engineeringprojects that serve people living in the developing world and smaller communities in the U.S.,2) learn how community-based engineering projects fit into larger, global issues of sustainabledevelopment, 3) develop an understanding of the important inter-relationship of public healthand engineering; 4) incorporate environmental, societal, and economic considerations andcommunity participation into engineering practice. As part of the Sustainable Development Engineering course, interdisciplinary groups areexpected to collaborate with community partners and produce a valuable suite of deliverablesincluding a construction project, a multimedia presentation, and a project proposal to communitystakeholders. The relationship is mutually beneficial—students provide on-site skilled labor,visually powerful multi-media presentations, and high quality project proposals for thecommunity; in return, the students create project deliverables that act as a professional product todisplay the knowledge and skills they have developed during the course. In addition, eachdeliverable integrates varying levels of partnership with the community, sharpening theirteamwork and cross-cultural global competencies. Furthermore, a reinforcing loop has emergedover the years of the course’s evolution as former students have become instructors for thecourse, grafting their field experience into lectures and community partnershipdevelopment. This affords instructors opportunities to improve skills in lesson planning,instructing, and classroom management. Because of the valuable and broadening impact of the class, the purpose of this paper isto investigate the course evolution over the past seven years and the manner in which the coursechanges have translated into an expanding impact. This will be achieved through a comparisonand critical reflection of previous syllabi in conjunction with class goals, global competencies,and engineering education literature

An Environmental Equity Assessment Using a Social Vulnerability Index during the SARS-CoV-2 Pandemic for Siting of Wastewater-Based Epidemiology Locations in the United States

Research has shown that there has consistently been a lack of equity and accessibility to SARS-CoV-2 testing in underserved and disadvantaged areas in the United States. This study examines the distribution of Wastewater-Based Epidemiology (WBE) testing placement across the United States (US), particularly within the context of underserved communities, and explores an environmental equity approach to address the impact of WBE on future pandemics. The methods combined the Centers for Disease Control Social Vulnerability Index (CDC-SVI) data set at the county level in a geospatial analysis utilizing ArcGIS and multilinear regression analysis as independent variables to investigate disparities in WBE coverage in the US. The findings show that disparities exist between counties in the use of WBE nationwide. The results show that WBE is distributed inequitably on national and state levels. Considering the nationwide adoption of WBE and funding availability through the CDC National Wastewater Surveillance System, these findings underscore the importance of equitable WBE coverage for effective COVID-19 monitoring. These findings offer data to support that a focus on expanding WBE coverage to underserved communities ensures a proactive and inclusive strategy against future pandemics

Using Social Media to Create a Global Community of Sustainability-Engaged Students

Using Social Media to Create a Global Community of Sustainability- Engaged Students Programs that enable engineering students to study outside of the United States have been effectively integrated with engineering education (Trotz et al., 2009). These programs are exposing students to global concepts of sustainability (Hokanson et al., 2007) and helping them develop core competencies in engineering while simultaneously building higher cognitive levels in some skills and in attitudes and identity outcomes (Bielefeldt et al., 2010). However, not every student can travel outside of the country. Social networking sites, such as Twitter, have not only been embraced by students from younger generations, they are also being used to communicate science (Darling et al. 2013). This study seeks to answer the question: can social media be used to create a global community of students that are engaged in learning about sustainability? In 2013, the University of South Florida (USF) and the University of the Virgin Islands (UVI) launched “Reclaim” as a way to create a community that connects researchers around the world from different disciplines who are dedicated to the recovery of resources from waste. “Reclaim” utilizes a website (usf-reclaim.org) with a blog, a YouTube channel (youtube.com/usfreclaim),and a Twitter account (@USF_Reclaim) to create this global community and disseminate research findings and educational materials. In addition, a one-credit course is currently being offered to students from USF and UVI, designed to operate entirely through the use of the sesocial networking platforms. The overall purpose of the course is to inform students about the professional meaning of sustainability across different disciplines, and help them develop skillsets to become globally competent in science and engineering, with a particular focus on sustainable engineered, environmental, and social systems. Each week, one or two students produce a 10-15 minute video and select reading materials related to a topic selected by the course professor. Case studies are used to explore interdisciplinary solutions to context-sensitive systems. The responsible students host a Twitter chat each week about the topic covered in the video, the readings, or the case study. The content and substance of conversations taking place during weekly Twitter discussions and the interaction between students in different geographic locations and from different disciplines is currently being measured. After the first four weeks, the Twitter chats have seen participate on from over 40 people from different disciplines (engineering, anthropology, education, philosophy, marine science, biochemistry, and microbiology) representing nine different universities in the United States, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Czech Republic, the Netherlands, Bolivia, and the United Kingdom. Analysis of YouTube analytics data and data from the Twitter chats suggests several findings: 1) participants from outside of the United States are viewing online material for a longer period of time on average than participants from the United States; 2)most students used Twitter infrequently before the course and none of them used it in this way;3) while multiple conversational strands occur simultaneously in the Twitter discussions, participants maintain conversations for up to nine turns over a 15 minute time interval; 4) content analysis of tweets suggests that most tweets are structured as reasoned claims with some arguments framed as syllogisms; and 5) new conversational strands have emerged during Twitter chats as participants asked questions that either challenged a comment made by others in a tweet or requested clarification of points

The need of an environmental justice approach for wastewater based epidemiology for rural and disadvantaged communities: A review in California.

Amid the 2019 coronavirus disease pandemic (COVID-19), the scientific community has a responsibility to provide accessible public health resources within their communities. Wastewater based epidemiology (WBE) has been used to monitor community spread of the pandemic. The goal of this review was to evaluate the need for an environmental justice approach for COVID-19 WBE starting with the state of California in the United States. Methods included a review of the peer-reviewed literature, government-provided data, and news stories. As of June 2021, there were twelve universities, nine public dashboards, and 48 of 384 wastewater treatment plants monitoring wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 within California. The majority of wastewater monitoring in California has been conducted in the urban areas of Coastal and Southern California (34/48), with a lack of monitoring in more rural areas of Central (10/48) and Northern California (4/48). Similar to the access to COVID-19 clinical testing and vaccinations, there is a disparity in access to wastewater testing which can often provide an early warning system to outbreaks. This research demonstrates the need for an environmental justice approach and equity considerations when determining locations for environmental monitoring

Human viral nucleic acids concentrations in wastewater solids from Central and Coastal California USA

Abstract We measured concentrations of SARS-CoV-2, influenza A and B virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), mpox virus, human metapneumovirus, norovirus GII, and pepper mild mottle virus nucleic acids in wastewater solids at twelve wastewater treatment plants in Central California, USA. Measurements were made daily for up to two years, depending on the wastewater treatment plant. Measurements were made using digital droplet (reverse-transcription–) polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) following best practices for making environmental molecular biology measurements. These data can be used to better understand disease occurrence in communities contributing to the wastewater

Human viral nucleic acids concentrations in wastewater solids from Central and Coastal California USA.

We measured concentrations of SARS-CoV-2, influenza A and B virus, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), mpox virus, human metapneumovirus, norovirus GII, and pepper mild mottle virus nucleic acids in wastewater solids at twelve wastewater treatment plants in Central California, USA. Measurements were made daily for up to two years, depending on the wastewater treatment plant. Measurements were made using digital droplet (reverse-transcription-) polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) following best practices for making environmental molecular biology measurements. These data can be used to better understand disease occurrence in communities contributing to the wastewater

Show us the data: global COVID-19 wastewater monitoring efforts, equity, and gaps

A year since the declaration of the global coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, there were over 110 million cases and 2.5 million deaths. Learning from methods to track community spread of other viruses such as poliovirus, environmental virologists and those in the wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) field quickly adapted their existing methods to detect SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater. Unlike COVID-19 case and mortality data, there was not a global dashboard to track wastewater monitoring of SARS-CoV-2 RNA worldwide. This study provides a 1-year review of the “COVIDPoops19” global dashboard of universities, sites, and countries monitoring SARS-CoV-2 RNA in wastewater. Methods to assemble the dashboard combined standard literature review, Google Form submissions, and daily, social media keyword searches. Over 200 universities, 1400 sites, and 55 countries with 59 dashboards monitored wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 RNA. However, monitoring was primarily in high-income countries (65%) with less access to this valuable tool in low- and middle-income countries (35%). Data were not widely shared publicly or accessible to researchers to further inform public health actions, perform meta-analysis, better coordinate, and determine equitable distribution of monitoring sites. For WBE to be used to its full potential during COVID-19 and beyond, show us the data.Sanitary Engineerin

Model training periods impact estimation of COVID-19 incidence from wastewater viral loads.

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been deployed broadly as an early warning tool for emerging COVID-19 outbreaks. WBE can inform targeted interventions and identify communities with high transmission, enabling quick and effective responses. As the wastewater (WW) becomes an increasingly important indicator for COVID-19 transmission, more robust methods and metrics are needed to guide public health decision-making. This research aimed to develop and implement a mathematical framework to infer incident cases of COVID-19 from SARS-CoV-2 levels measured in WW. We propose a classification scheme to assess the adequacy of model training periods based on clinical testing rates and assess the sensitivity of model predictions to training periods. A testing period is classified as adequate when the rate of change in testing is greater than the rate of change in cases. We present a Bayesian deconvolution and linear regression model to estimate COVID-19 cases from WW data. The effective reproductive number is estimated from reconstructed cases using WW. The proposed modeling framework was applied to three Northern California communities served by distinct WW treatment plants. The results showed that training periods with adequate testing are essential to provide accurate projections of COVID-19 incidence