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COMMUNITY CASE STUDY article

Front. Public Health
Sec. Infectious Diseases: Epidemiology and Prevention
Volume 12 - 2024 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2024.1475425
This article is part of the Research Topic Novel Interventions for the Prevention and Control of Communicable Disease View all 11 articles

Community Case Study: An academia-industry-government partnership that monitors and predicts outbreaks in Tri-County Detroit Area since 2017

Provisionally accepted
Irene Xagoraraki Irene Xagoraraki 1*Liang Zhao Liang Zhao 1Yabing Li Yabing Li 1Brijen Miyani Brijen Miyani 1John Norton John Norton 2Anil Gosine Anil Gosine 3Anna Mehrotra Anna Mehrotra 4James Broz James Broz 5John Sheets John Sheets 5Scott Withington Scott Withington 6Stacey Mcfarlane Stacey Mcfarlane 7Russell A Faust Russell A Faust 8
  • 1 Michigan State University, East Lansing, United States
  • 2 Great Lakes Water Authority, Detroit, Michigan, United States
  • 3 Detroit Water and Sewerage Department, Detroit, Michigan, United States
  • 4 Water Environment Federation, Washington DC, United States
  • 5 CDM Smith, Detroit, Michigan, United States
  • 6 Detroit Health Department, Detroit, Michigan, United States
  • 7 Macomb County Health Division, Mount Clemens, United States
  • 8 Oakland County Health Division, Pontiac, Michigan, United States

The final, formatted version of the article will be published soon.

    The Tri-County Detroit Area (TCDA) is the 12th most populous metropolitan area in the United States with over three million people. Multiple communicable diseases are endemic in the TCDA. In 2017, to explore innovative methods that may provide early warnings of outbreaks affecting populations in the TCDA, an exploratory partnership that was funded by a U.S. National Science Foundation Early-concept Grant for Exploratory Research (EAGER) began. Since 2017, a project team including the College of Engineering at Michigan State University (MSU), the City of Detroit, the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA), industry, and local government and health departments, has been testing municipal wastewater from the TCDA to survey and predict surges in communicable diseases in the area. This ongoing effort started years before wastewater-based epidemiology became a widespread method in public health practice, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, and is now supported by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The work of the partnership led to significant breakthroughs in the field of wastewater surveillance/wastewater epidemiology. The results of our surveillance efforts are used to assist local health departments in their understanding and response efforts for health issues in the TCDA, facilitating public health messaging for local awareness, targeted clinical testing, and increased vaccination efforts. Our data are available to the local health departments, and our methodological advancements are published and have been used by other communities nationwide and beyond. This paper describes the partnership, lessons learned, significant achievements, and provides a look into the future. The successful implementations and advancements of wastewater surveillance in the TCDA advocate the importance of frequent communications and interactions within the partnership, idea generations from each stakeholder for decision-making, maintenance of scientific rigor, ethical awareness, and more.

    Keywords: Wastewater surveillance, prediction, screening, SARS-CoV-2, Communicable Diseases, academia-industry-government partnership

    Received: 03 Aug 2024; Accepted: 23 Dec 2024.

    Copyright: © 2024 Xagoraraki, Zhao, Li, Miyani, Norton, Gosine, Mehrotra, Broz, Sheets, Withington, Mcfarlane and Faust. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.

    * Correspondence: Irene Xagoraraki, Michigan State University, East Lansing, United States

    Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.