Comparison of pharmaceutical, illicit drug, alcohol, nicotine and caffeine levels in wastewater with sale, seizure and consumption data for 8 European cities

BMC Public Health

卷:16

Erika Castrignanò¹  Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern¹  Benedek G. Plósz²  Pedram Ramin²  Alexander van Nuijs³  Juliet Kinyua³  Ann-Kathrin McCall⁴  Christoph Ort⁴  Emma Gracia-Lor⁵  Nikolaos I. Rousis⁵  Sara Castiglioni⁵  Ana Causanilles⁶  Pim de Voogt⁶  Jorgen Bramness⁷  Stefania Salvatore⁷  Yeonsuk Ryu⁸  Jose Antonio Baz-Lomba⁸  Kevin Thomas⁸  Malcolm Reid⁸  Felix Hernandez⁹  Richard Bade⁹ 

[1] Department of Chemistry, University of Bath, Faculty of Science;

[2] Department of Environmental Engineering, Technical University of Denmark;

[3] Department of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Toxicological Center, Campus Drie Eiken, University of Antwerp;

[4] Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology;

[5] IRCCS-Istituto di Recerche Farmacologiche “Mario Negri”;

[6] KWR Watercycle Research Institute, Chemical Water Quality and Health;

[7] Norwegian Centre for Addiction Research, Faculty of Medicine, University of Oslo;

[8] Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA);

[9] Research Institute for Pesticides and Water, University Jaume I;

关键词: Wastewater-based epidemiology;    Drug consumption, Correlation, Europe-wide study, Seizures, Sales statistics;   

DOI  :  10.1186/s12889-016-3686-5

来源: DOAJ

【 摘 要 】

Abstract Background Monitoring the scale of pharmaceuticals, illicit and licit drugs consumption is important to assess the needs of law enforcement and public health, and provides more information about the different trends within different countries. Community drug use patterns are usually described by national surveys, sales and seizure data. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has been shown to be a reliable approach complementing such surveys. Method This study aims to compare and correlate the consumption estimates of pharmaceuticals, illicit drugs, alcohol, nicotine and caffeine from wastewater analysis and other sources of information. Wastewater samples were collected in 2015 from 8 different European cities over a one week period, representing a population of approximately 5 million people. Published pharmaceutical sale, illicit drug seizure and alcohol, tobacco and caffeine use data were used for the comparison. Results High agreement was found between wastewater and other data sources for pharmaceuticals and cocaine, whereas amphetamines, alcohol and caffeine showed a moderate correlation. methamphetamine and 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) and nicotine did not correlate with other sources of data. Most of the poor correlations were explained as part of the uncertainties related with the use estimates and were improved with other complementary sources of data. Conclusions This work confirms the promising future of WBE as a complementary approach to obtain a more accurate picture of substance use situation within different communities. Our findings suggest further improvements to reduce the uncertainties associated with both sources of information in order to make the data more comparable.

【 授权许可】

Unknown