Wastewater-based epidemiology pilot study to examine drug use in the Western United States.

ABSTRACT: The extent of prescription and illicit drug abuse in geographically isolated rural and micropolitan communities in the intermountain western United States (US) has not been well tracked. The goal of this pilot study was to accurately measure drug dose consumption rates (DCR) between two select populations, normalize the data and compare the DCRs to similar communities. To learn about patterns of drug abuse between the two disparate communities, we used the emergent field of wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE). A rapid, quantitative and systematic process for the determination of multiple classes of prescribed and illicit drugs was applied to influent wastewater samples. Influent samples were collected over the course of three months (April to June 2019) at two wastewater treatment plants r

SUBMITTER: Bishop N 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7361084 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Nov

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature