# Strengthening COVID-19 prevention strategies via wastewater surveillance in a Northern Plains Tribe

> **NIH NIH S06** · BLACK HILLS CTR/AMERICAN INDIAN HEALTH · 2024 · $515,432

## Abstract

Despite the abundance of clinical and epidemiologic data collected during this pandemic, relatively
little focus has been paid to the examination of infectious agents through bulk wastewater detection and
epidemiological data that is particularly well-suited for disease surveillance in remote, frontier settings
such as the CRST Reservation.
 The goal of this application is to develop and implement a 15-community wastewater testing
program for viral contaminants, including SARS-CoV-2, to better understand the utility of wastewater
testing and COVID-19 or other viral outbreaks in this remote, low-resourced, and relatively low-density
Tribal community.
 We will use our highly collaborative, multidisciplinary team of Native investigators to develop and
implement, and evaluate the effectiveness of a viral wastewater sequencing testing program in a very
rural and remote Northern Plains Lakota Reservation.
 Therefore, we propose to leverage our 20-year, long-running partnership with CRST to address the
following Specific Aims:
 1. Use a highly participatory approach to design, garner approval for, and implement a wastewater
 testing system in a large Tribal reservation community. This community surveillance approach will
 screen for viral isolates, including SARS-CoV-2, in coordination with CRST’s preexisting COVID-19
 surveillance system; and
 2. Deploy qualitative methods to examine 16 key Tribal stakeholders’ and Tribal members’
 attitudes towards this new community wastewater testing approach and, ultimately, how this
 new environmental testing effort affects Tribal members socially, ethically, and behaviorally; and
 3. Seek to codify this new resource into the Tribe’s public health emergency response program,
 thereby enhancing the Tribe’s capacity for future viral and other likely epidemic and pandemic
outbreaks.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10927363
- **Project number:** 5S06GM146079-03
- **Recipient organization:** BLACK HILLS CTR/AMERICAN INDIAN HEALTH
- **Principal Investigator:** Jeffrey A Henderson
- **Activity code:** S06 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2024
- **Award amount:** $515,432
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2022-09-01 → 2026-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10927363

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10927363, Strengthening COVID-19 prevention strategies via wastewater surveillance in a Northern Plains Tribe (5S06GM146079-03). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-26 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10927363. Licensed CC0.

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