Wastewater Analysis for Substance Abuse Monitoring and Policy Development

This book addresses how to estimate substance use and thereby evaluate policies intended to reduce the harms caused by drugs and other substances. Wastewater analysis (WWA) can provide efficient, affordable, fine-grained and objective data on population substance use trends on a very large scale.

The authors discuss the potential implications of WWA as a new method for understanding substance use in a variety of settings and ignite a discourse with policy makers, criminologists, epidemiologists and other disciplines about the need for collaboration with WWA scientists. The book also features an explanation of the costs and harms of substance use with academic literature from criminological and epidemiological sources and reports from lead agencies.