Rapid Assessment of Opioid Exposure and Treatment in Cities Through Robotic Collection and Chemical Analysis of Wastewater.

ABSTRACT:

Introduction

Accurate data regarding opioid use, overdose, and treatment is important in guiding community efforts at combating the opioid epidemic. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a potential method to quantify community-level trends of opioid exposure beyond overdose data, which is the basis of most existing response efforts. However, most WBE efforts collect parent opioid compounds (e.g., morphine) at wastewater treatment facilities, measuring opioid concentrations across large catchment zones which typically represent an entire municipality. We sought to deploy a robotic sampling device at targeted manholes within a city to semi-quantitatively detect opioid metabolites (e.g., morphine glucuronide) at a sub-city community resolution.

Methods

We deployed a robotic w

SUBMITTER: Endo N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7099105 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature