Background: Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has become crucial for early microbial outbreak detection and public health surveillance globally, underscored by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, despite advancements in sampling and analyses, interpreting results and estimating infection rates pose challenges. Enhancements in sewer system engineering, understanding the wastewater environment, and addressing the impact of the environment on the accuracy of results are needed. Objective: This scoping review aims to identify engineering knowledge gaps in WBE to guide future study designs. Design: Research on “wastewater-based epidemiology” involving “engineering”, published between 2015 and 2023, was extracted from the Scopus database. Results: This scoping review examines elements influencing WBE’s precision and reliability, especially in identifying and measuring SARS-CoV-2 RNA. It identifies significant effects of engineering, analytical practices, and the wastewater’s composition on WBE performance. Conclusions: This review calls for further investigation into economical evaluation methods of these factors to enhance WBE data normalization and interpretation, utilizing existing wastewater treatment plant data used for treatment control, which could be a cost-effective approach over more expensive population biomarkers. This approach, aside from SARS-CoV-2, holds potential for application to a broader number and types of diseases, as well as population consumption habits.

中文翻译：

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基于废水的流行病学的精确度和准确度限制——从 SARS-CoV-2 中汲取的经验教训：范围界定审查

背景：基于废水的流行病学 (WBE) 已成为全球早期微生物爆发检测和公共卫生监测的关键，COVID-19 大流行凸显了这一点。然而，尽管采样和分析取得了进步，但解释结果和估计感染率仍面临挑战。需要加强下水道系统工程、了解废水环境并解决环境对结果准确性的影响。目标：本次范围审查旨在确定 WBE 中的工程知识差距，以指导未来的研究设计。设计：2015年至2023年间发表的涉及“工程”的“废水流行病学”研究，摘自Scopus数据库。结果：本次范围界定审查审查了影响 WBE 精度和可靠性的因素，特别是在识别和测量 SARS-CoV-2 RNA 方面。它确定了工程、分析实践和废水成分对 WBE 性能的显着影响。结论：本综述呼吁进一步研究这些因素的经济评估方法，以加强 WBE 数据标准化和解释，利用现有的废水处理厂数据进行处理控制，这可能是比更昂贵的群体生物标志物更经济有效的方法。除了 SARS-CoV-2 之外，这种方法还有可能应用于更广泛数量和类型的疾病以及人群消费习惯。