Illicit drug abuse has become a major global threat to public health and economic welfare. Lack of real-time data on drug use is one of the challenges to monitoring community drug consumption patterns. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is becoming a rapidly evolving discipline to measure near-real-time estimation of community drug consumption at the population level, based on the quantification of excreted drugs and their metabolites in wastewater influent. Thus, this study aims to (1) determine the frequency and quantity of opioid drugs (e.g., morphine, cocaine, oxycodone, MDMA, fentanyl) entering the community of a northeastern urban city of the U.S. via WBE, and (2) provide real-time community consumption patterns that will aid in the development of intervention programs. The experimental methodology includes 24-hour composite influent wastewater samples collected one week per month over a consecutive 12-month period. Wastewater samples will be filtered and concentrated using the solid-phase extraction (SPE) method and analyzed for the presence and concentration of opioids using LC-MS/MS. Calibration curves for the drugs of interest have been developed and more than 90% removal efficiency was observed for the SPE method. Back-calculation of analyte concentrations will be performed to determine the drug mass load for the study area. This innovative approach will supplement existing data by providing more rapid and unbiased measures of drug use in the study area. The results will also provide early warning about the types of drugs entering communities that are vulnerable to illegal drug use.

Estimating real-time illicit community drug consumption patterns using wastewater-based epidemiology

ACS Spring 2022

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