Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been widely applied to mining information about public health. Most of the WBE studies focused on illicit drugs and psychoactive compounds, and some researchers expanded WBE method to exposure or health level assessment. Proper biomarker selection is critical to get reliable substance consumption/intake estimation using WBE. This study measured a broad range of pharmaceuticals and metabolites in a wastewater treatment plant in Beijing, China and evaluated their suitability as consumption biomarkers. Wastewater sampling was conducted during a normal week and two holiday weeks to assess the impact of the holiday on population normalized daily mass loads (PNDL). 149 out of 168 pharmaceuticals and metabolites were detected, with 94 analytes being quantified in all sampling events. Digestive drug cimetidine and anabolic steroid trenbolone were only detected during holiday weeks. Population normalized daily load of some substances showed disparities between weekdays and weekends during the normal week. This study proposed a framework to diagnose whether a parent compound or its metabolite is suitable to apply for intake/prevalence rate estimation. It shows that not all the metabolites can be employed as biomarkers for back-calculation when in-sewer stability of these compounds is not clear, such as metoprolol acid and O-desmethyl venlafaxine. Public healthcare data for drug utilization were applied to validate the prevalence of average substance use in this study. WBE study illustrates the changes in drug use and population lifestyle that stem from holidays and commutes. In addition, it can provide data support for the selection of more suitable biomarkers in WBE studies.

Wastewater surveillance for 168 pharmaceuticals and metabolites in a WWTP: Occurrence, temporal variations and feasibility of metabolic biomarkers for intake estimation

ACS Spring 2022

The official archive and repository for all ACS Meetings & Expositions abstracts and select posters or presentations.