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Comparative Study
. 2016 Oct 1;16(1):1035.
doi: 10.1186/s12889-016-3686-5.

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

Jose Antonio Baz-Lomba  1   2 , Stefania Salvatore  3 , Emma Gracia-Lor  4 , Richard Bade  5 , Sara Castiglioni  4 , Erika Castrignanò  6 , Ana Causanilles  7 , Felix Hernandez  5 , Barbara Kasprzyk-Hordern  6 , Juliet Kinyua  8 , Ann-Kathrin McCall  9 , Alexander van Nuijs  8 , Christoph Ort  9 , Benedek G Plósz  10 , Pedram Ramin  10 , Malcolm Reid  11 , Nikolaos I Rousis  4 , Yeonsuk Ryu  11 , Pim de Voogt  7 , Jorgen Bramness  3 , Kevin Thomas  11
Affiliations
Comparative Study

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

Jose Antonio Baz-Lomba et al. BMC Public Health. .

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.

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

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Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
Relationship between the drug estimations from prevalence and seizures and consumption versus the population-normalised loads measured in wastewater. Spearman’s correlation coefficient (ρ) was used to assess the level of agreement between wastewater and other sources of data. P values less than 0.05 were considered statistically significant
See this image and copyright information in PMC

Comment in

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