Wastewater Surveillance for Public Health: Beyond the Pandemic

Abstract

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a public health tool that enables informed, targeted responses to crises such as disease outbreaks and epidemics. In this paper, we discuss the significance of the practice of open science in generating social impact through policy decisions on day-to-day pandemic management when public institutions adopt WBE as part of the COVID-19 pandemic response. Further, we examine how open science helped communicate the importance and credibility of cutting-edge science to the public through continuous engagement using publicly available data, scientific communication interfaced through mass media, and information sharing via a live dashboard. Critical to the translation of science to policy was the philosophy of complete access to the entire knowledge generation process, results, and findings. We analyze the success of such an initiative in the city of Bengaluru in India amidst other academic studies in the country with regard to their translation to policy engagement. We posit that Bengaluru’s success may be due to the presence of an open science ethos, and multi-stakeholder inputs for knowledge creation and dissemination, leading to nuanced science communication which is empowering rather than patronizing. We further suggest policy-level recommendations for the incorporation of WBE as a public health surveillance tool and impress upon the interweaving of open science as part of scientific practice and its broader uptake by the policy ecosystem.