Identification of biomarkers in wastewater-based epidemiology: Main approaches and analytical methods

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has become popular to estimate the use of drugs of abuse and recently to establish the incidence of CoVID 19 in large cities. However, its possibilities have been expanded recently as a technique that allows to establish a fingerprint of the characteristics of a city, such as state of health/disease, healthy/unhealthy living habits, exposure to different types of contaminants, etc. with respect to other cities. This has been thanks to the identification of human biomarkers as well as to the fingerprinting and profiling of the characteristics of the wastewater catchment that determine these circumstances. The purpose of this review is to analyze the different methodological schemes that have been developed to perform this biomarker identification as well as the most characteristic analytical techniques in each scheme, their advantages and disadvantages and the knowledge gaps identified. We also discussed the future scope for development. (C) 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier B.V.

Automated summary

Wastewater-based epidemiology is not only used to estimate drug abuse and CoVID 19 incidence, but also to establish a fingerprint of city characteristics, such as health status, lifestyle, and exposure to pollutants. By identifying human biomarkers and wastewater characteristics, a better understanding of city features and differences can be achieved.