# Integrating Wastewater-Based Epidemiology into the National Drug Early Warning System Coordinating Center to Track Community Health Trends

> **NIH NIH U01** · UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA · 2021 · $152,498

## Abstract

SUMMARY
Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is an innovative and cost-effective approach that complements
traditional, yet important, self-reporting methods and biospecimen testing to construct drug use trends on a
community scale. WBE has been successfully applied to estimate consumption of targeted illegal drugs and
has more recently been applied to detect the emergence of new psychoactive substances (NPS) in varied
settings such as large urban communities and during/after smaller focused events (e.g., festivals, sports
events). Yet, this approach has not formally been integrated into the National Drug Early Warning System
(NDEWS) Coordinating Center, a platform which provides experts and communities with the most timely
information on emerging substance use trends through traditional and novel surveillance data as well as on-
the-ground epidemiologic investigations. Therefore this proposal aims to provide accurate up-to-date
wastewater chemical/drug surveillance data from designated partner sites of the NDEWS Coordinating
Center and wastewater industry, calculate drug consumption over time, and align our approach with
existing NDEWS surveillance data to help identify hot spots or new emerging trends across
communities on a national scale. This will be accomplished through 2 aims: 1) Coordinate collection and
analysis of wastewater samples from NDEWS Sentinel Site locations for known drugs/metabolites and NPS
using high-end mass spectrometry approaches and 2) Validate and disseminate actionable WBE data by
comparing data from on-going drug use surveillance studies as part of NDEWS with WBE generated drug
trends, integrate WBE data with public health and utility information to develop a visualization tool and
disseminate information via the NDEWS Coordinating Center and through 2 way regular communication with
our water industry and public health partners and their local communities. Our proof-of-concept proposal will
provide the benefits of easy integration of WBE into the existing NDEWS framework, and data sets that are
immediately available to the NDEWS partners which will, importantly, inform current and emerging drug use
trends that can be used to refine public health measures.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10375878
- **Project number:** 3U01DA051126-02S2
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA
- **Principal Investigator:** Linda B. Cottler
- **Activity code:** U01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2021
- **Award amount:** $152,498
- **Award type:** 3
- **Project period:** 2021-05-01 → 2022-02-28

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10375878

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10375878, Integrating Wastewater-Based Epidemiology into the National Drug Early Warning System Coordinating Center to Track Community Health Trends (3U01DA051126-02S2). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10375878. Licensed CC0.

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