Conference: Ethical Wastewater Sampling Research Workshop Series

Sewers increasingly intersect with the research interests of multiple domains of practice. The large-scale implementation of wastewater surveillance has the potential to provide substantial benefits to the detection and understanding of communal disease prevalence, which can strengthen public health. This advancement shifts the exploration from water as a material to waste as a social indicator. In doing so, the ethical frame and expectations for the research community of practice must evolve. However, guidance, educational materials, and oversight remain underdeveloped within sewer research, requiring a meeting of the community of practice to establish preliminary best practices and educational materials to assist this new evolution within wastewater management. The Ethical Sewer Research (ESR) Workshop Series focuses on assembling the community for two-virtual workshops and one in-person workshop. These events will result in the production of relevant educational materials. The ESR Workshop Series explores the intersectional nature of research informed by wastewater sampling, uniting perspectives from multiple fields. Over the course of virtual and in-person workshops, the discussions supported by the ESR Series are anticipated to develop research guidelines and standards for ethical practice. The two virtual workshops focus on identifying five key thematic areas within the ethical application of wastewater surveillance. The two-day in-person workshop focuses on developing educational materials in support of these identified areas. These education materials will be broadly distributed to assist the sewer research community. Overall, clearly defining the concerns and care surrounding wastewater sampling enables the community to adapt to emerging trends in sewer research. This knowledge and engagement can help to shape more scientifically sound and ethically grounded policies. With the format of the workshop seeking representation from policymakers and community stakeholders, the development of this research community of practice will be directly informed by the desired-use of the data in support of public health, infrastructure, and built-environment resiliency. This project is funded through the ER2 program by the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.