Wastewater-based epidemiology: current status and future prospects

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been consolidated as a tool to provide real-time information on consumption of legal and illegal drugs of abuse by the population. However, WBE is expected to achieve more ambitious objectives such as establishing exposure to certain agents (pesticides, personal care products, persistent organic pollutants, and pathogens), incidence of specific diseases (diabetes, allergies, oxidative stress, and cancer), and determination of some lifestyle consequences (exposure to personal care products, consumption of doping substances or products for the treatment of erectile dysfunction) or environmental factors (increase in temperature) in populations. Herein, we outlined the state-of-the-art applications of WBE including its advantages and disadvantages as well as the prospects for achieving a broader assessment of the habits and health of populations. WBE needs to be further strengthened to help epidemiologists and health authorities to correctly assess fingerprints of human activities in wastewater.