EPA Findings for Monitoring Community Health for SARS-CoV-2: Development of a Salivary Immunoassay for Detection of COVID-19

Over the past three years, since the rise of COVID and its many variants, EPA’s Office of Research and Development have 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, which is part of a complementing, two-part series of research conducted at EPA on SARS-CoV-2, focuses on monitoring SARS-CoV-2 within a population. Research on EPA’s Facilities COVID-19 Dashboard, salivary antibody assay, and SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater surveillance will be presented.  The first of three presentations will share how EPA researchers developed an EPA Facility Dashboard Tool to help protect its workforce health and safety during the COVID-19 pandemic, which was based on reliable data and credible sources of information. This Dashboard informed Agency leadership about the level of COVID-19 infection in communities with ORD facilities, which was then used to inform decision-making about keeping ORD workspaces safe for staff. A second presentation will provide an overview of how EPA adapted a salivary antibody test that had been previously used as a test 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 will be provided on 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

Over the past three years, since the rise of COVID and its many variants, EPA’s Office of Research and Development have 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 symposium session, which is part of a complementing, two-part series of research conducted at EPA on SARS-CoV-2, focuses on monitoring SARS-CoV-2 within a population. Research on EPA’s Facilities COVID-19 Dashboard, salivary antibody assay, and SARS-CoV-2 Wastewater surveillance will be presented. 

Citation

Egorov, A., S. Griffin, AND Tim Wade. EPA Findings for Monitoring Community Health for SARS-CoV-2: Development of a Salivary Immunoassay for Detection of COVID-19. National Environmental Health Association Annual Educational Conference and Exhibition, Pittsburgh, PA, July 15 - 18, 2024.