J. Frank Barefield, Jr. Department of Criminal Justice, University of Alabama at Birmingham, Birmingham, Alabama, United States of America.
Forensic Sci Rev. 2023 Jul;35(2):79-105.
Drug usage data in a community has traditionally been obtained through population surveys, records from law enforcement activities related to drug-related crime, drug treatment centers, prison data, and hospital records. Wastewater-based epidemiology has gained traction in the last 10 years as a formidable complimentary tool to monitor, track, and estimate community consumption of both illicit and therapeutic drugs within a community. In wastewater-based epidemiology, targeted biomarkers (parent drug and/or metabolite) of illicit and therapeutic drugs are quantified in wastewater and back-calculated to community consumption. In conjunction with more traditional methods of obtaining drug usage data, information from wastewater-based epidemiology has been used to detect the types and amounts of drugs being used within a community. One of the main advantages of wastewater-based epidemiology is the near-real-time data obtained from it, which assists with the quick adaptation of both harm reduction and supply mitigation strategies. Wastewater-based epidemiology has also seen an increase in forensic application through the detection of production facilities within a community, determining the synthesis route of certain illicit drugs like methamphetamine, and enantiomeric profiling to distinguish between illicit and therapeutic use of drugs. This review summarizes the main focus areas and applications of wastewater-based epidemiology from a forensic perspective.
传统上，社区的药物使用数据是通过人口调查、与毒品相关犯罪的执法活动记录、戒毒中心、监狱数据和医院记录获得的。在过去的 10 年中，基于废水的流行病学作为一种强大的补充工具，用于监测、跟踪和估计社区内非法和治疗性药物的使用情况，逐渐受到关注。在基于废水的流行病学中，非法和治疗性药物的靶向生物标志物（母体药物和/或代谢物）在废水中进行定量，并反向推算到社区的消耗量。结合传统的获取药物使用数据的方法，基于废水的流行病学信息已被用于检测社区内使用的药物种类和数量。基于废水的流行病学的主要优势之一是可以从其中获得近乎实时的数据，这有助于快速调整减少伤害和供应缓解策略。通过检测社区内的生产设施，基于废水的流行病学也在法医应用方面有所增加，包括确定某些非法药物（如冰毒）的合成路线，以及对映体分析以区分药物的非法和治疗用途。本综述从法医角度总结了基于废水的流行病学的主要关注领域和应用。
