COVID is Here to Stay: EPA Findings for Monitoring Community Health for SARS-CoV-2

Over the past three years, since the rise of COVID and its many variants, EPA’s Office of Research and Development conducted a wide array of environmental public health research aimed to better understand COVID transmission, methods for protection and prevention from COVID transmission, and strategies for monitoring community health for COVID. This session focused on monitoring SARS-CoV-2 within a population. Research on EPA’s Facilities COVID-19 Dashboard, salivary fluid antibody assay, and SARS-CoV-2 wastewater surveillance were presented. The first of three presentations shared how EPA researchers developed an EPA Facility Dashboard Tool to help protect its workforce health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic. The tool uses publicly available and fit-for-purpose data, as well as scientifically credible sources of information. This Dashboard informed Agency leadership about the level of COVID-19 infection in communities with EPA facilities, which was then used to inform decision-making about keeping EPA workspaces safe for staff. A second presentation provided an overview of how EPA adapted a salivary antibody test that had been previously used for potentially waterborne pathogens to test for antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. This research advanced the ability to understand how COVID-19 spreads and can be used to complement findings from other types of community surveillance. A third presentation provided research findings on wastewater surveillance for COVID. Aside from actual testing, there were limited indicators for monitoring how COVID-19 spread throughout communities. Through collaborative work with Ohio and CDC, EPA piloted and implemented a study to look at factors affecting the molecular signal of SARS-COV-2 in sewage as a marker of community COVID prevalence. Through this activity, EPA introduced new information into the COVID-19 response management and developed a monitoring approach that can be used for wastewater as an early public health indicator.

Impact/Purpose

Through EPA/ORD presentations, NEHA attendees: 1. Learned of science and strategies for monitoring population health for COVID,   2. Learned of strategies for protecting workforce health and safety during the ongoing COVID pandemic, and 3. Learned of methods for public health practitioners to track localized transmission rates.

Citation

Cascio, W., A. Neale, A. Egorov, S. Griffin, T. Wade, AND N. Brinkman. COVID is Here to Stay: EPA Findings for Monitoring Community Health for SARS-CoV-2. To be presented at National Environmental Health Association (NEHA) 2024 Annual Educational Conference, Pittsburg, PA, July 15 - 18, 2024.