Collaborative Research: IHBEM: Beneath the Surface: Integrating Wastewater Surveillance and Human Behavior to Decode Epidemiological Patterns

How can disease outbreaks in an increasingly interconnected world be better predicted and responded to? The project tackles this challenge by combining two key sources of information: community wastewater and human behaviors. While current methods often rely on delayed and inaccurate medical reports, our innovative approach analyzes traces of viruses in sewage and incorporates various types of data about human activity. This includes information on people's movements, social interactions, online searches, social media posts, and immune factors. By combining these diverse data sources, the Investigators aim to detect diseases earlier and gain a more comprehensive understanding of how they spread through communities. The investigators will also examine how public attitudes and behaviors evolve during prolonged health crises. Although the initial focus is on COVID-19, the methods to be developed could be applied to other infectious diseases, helping communities worldwide prepare for future health emergencies. Beyond the research, the investigators are committed to training undergraduate and graduate students from diverse backgrounds, nurturing the next generation of public health professionals. Ultimately, this project will provide valuable tools for health officials to make quicker, more informed decisions to protect public health. The goal of this project is to enhance mathematical epidemiological modeling by integrating human behavioral data with wastewater surveillance data, creating a more comprehensive and timely approach to outbreak detection and response. By synthesizing advancements across mathematical modeling, wastewater epidemiology, and geographic information science (GIScience), the research approach innovatively connects human behavior insights with wastewater data to enhance viral transmission understanding and forecasts at the community level. To achieve this, the Investigators will pursue three main objectives: (1) Develop an early-warning system using wastewater and digital and social behavior data; (2) Create a socio-immuno-epidemiological framework to examine the effectiveness of pharmaceutical interventions and the emergence of dominant variants using wastewater surveillance data; and (3) Model the impact of pandemic fatigue social behaviors on viral transmission at the community level. These objectives will be addressed by a interdisciplinary research team, which brings together expertise in applied mathematics, epidemiology, public health, and geography. This approach represents a significant step forward in understanding the complex interactions between human behavior, immune responses, and pathogen spread. Ultimately, the research outcomes will equip health officials with valuable tools for designing proactive, targeted, and adaptable interventions, enabling quicker and more informed decision-making. This award is co-funded by DMS (Division of Mathematical Sciences) and SBE/SES (Directorate of Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, Division of Social and Economic Sciences). This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.