Wastewater epidemiology is gaining widespread interest around the world for its usefulness in efforts to help detect public health threats. Rolf Halden, a Fulton Schools professor and environmental engineer, has been among the leading researchers examining wastewater to yield data that is helping to track the spread of diseases — especially since the outbreak of the COVID-19 epidemic. Halden thinks of cities and other high-population areas as big organisms with distinct metabolisms, that can be analyzed by examining the contents of sewage systems. Advances in monitoring wastewater could keep communities a step ahead of potential outbreaks of diseases, he says, and reveal information to warn the public about lurking environmental dangers. (Access to the full content of New Scientist magazine is available only to subscribers.)

See Also: A new way to smash the ‘forever’ out of ‘forever chemicals’ The Verge, August 18
Fulton Schools Professor Rolf Halden is among scientists and engineers who are amassing an arsenal of tools to fight off “forever chemicals” that are threatening the environment and human health.