9-August-2024

The Vital Data You Flush Down The Toilet: Newsha Ghaeli talks about an abundance of information on our well-being that runs through city sewers, and we contribute to that information each time nature calls. “Everybody pees and poops — and we know that urine and stool contain a rich source of information on our health,” states Ghaeli. From a single stool sample from sewers we can collect valuable data about our community, such as infectious diseases going around and chemical markers for common drugs used. One benefit of the sewers is that it’s the “perfect data dump”. In other words, there’s no way to trace stool from a sewer back to a certain individual; every person’s stool is mixed with that of thousands of other people, making this data anonymous in a way. This growing field of analyzing stool to make improvements in healthcare is called “wastewater epidemiology”. And wastewater epidemiology isn’t the only data cities are generating. We are constantly contributing to said data, perhaps through miles driven or phone calls made. All the analysis of this information tells us unique stories about how the area around us is working. Another significant point? More than half of all people live in cities, and this statistic will continue to grow with time. There are solutions being developed for healthcare using wastewater epidemiology. Take COVID for example. Research teams were able to detect the virus that causes COVID in sewage samples. Sewage was shown to be an accurate representation of COVID activity in cities. Sewage is now a leading indicator of new COVID cases. Wastewater epidemiology has been used to look at other cutting-edge health issues too. Before the COVID pandemic, the USA’s biggest crisis was the drug epidemic. Drug overdosing had become the leading cause of accidental death, and OD rates were skyrocketing. Researchers began analyzing sewage samples across a city in North Carolina; they found that prescription opioids were the most commonly consumed drug. The city then diverted money to fund medication takeback programs to demote the use of prescription opioids. These methods eventually led to a significant decrease in overdoses. Wastewater epidemiology was not well-known before the pandemic. But today, 72 countries use wastewater epidemiology to understand healthcare issues. Just remember, next time you use the toilet, you’re doing your civic duty.