Funding Agency: 
National Science Foundation, David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Pacific Source Health Plans, and Oregon State University Foundation

In 2020, in collaboration with OSU TRACE and funded by the National Science Foundation, David and Lucille Packard Foundation, Pacific Source Health Plans, and Oregon State University Foundation, we sampled the wastewater in several Oregon communities. This was simultaneous to random community clinical testing for SARS-CoV-2 by OSU TRACE. 

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We illustrated the utility and value of wastewater surveillance data though direct comparisons with public health metrics, and prevalence testing in the same location and time. Across time and communities (Bend, Corvallis, Redmond, Newport, Eugene, and Hermiston) the relationship between wastewater viral concentrations and prevalence was confirmed.

Publication: Evaluation of a wastewater-based epidemiological approach to estimate the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infections and the detection of viral variants in disparate Oregon communities at city and neighborhood scales by Layton et al. was published in the Environmental Health Perspectives journal.