Learnings from the Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit
Last updated September 4, 2025
From 2022 to 2025, WEF partnered with the CDC to host an annual, free event dedicated to public health wastewater monitoring. These Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summits brought together water and public health professionals, researchers, and other stakeholders to explore best practices, innovative applications, and emerging trends in wastewater-based epidemiology. Each summit provided updates on the National Wastewater Surveillance System (NWSS) and highlighted initiatives led by state and local health departments, thereby fostering collaboration and knowledge sharing across disciplines. Below are links to posters presented at the 2024 and 2025 events, and recordings for the 2023 through 2025 events.
2025 Summit
The 2025 Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit was held on June 3 and 4 in person at the California Endowment Center in Los Angeles, California, and online on Zoom. Thank you to all our incredible speakers, moderators, and attendees who made the event what it was: two engaging days of thoughtful and forward-looking conversations about wastewater disease surveillance! Please see some of the posters presented during the event and the live recordings of the sessions below.
Posters
Amador et al. Urban to rural shifts: quantifying the time lag of SARS-CoV-2 between the Bay Area and Central Valley through WBE
Berkobien et al. Evaluating the impact of dairy processor inputs on avian influenza A(H5) RNA levels in California wastewater
Butler. Building a stronger network: best practices in initiating a public works department-regional institution partnership for wastewater monitoring in rural America
Deegan et al. Preparing for return of results from wastewater surveillance: stakeholder perspectives and ethical considerations
Eastwood & Kingston Evaluating wastewater seasonal onset methods to improve early detections of influenza A
Franklin et al. Using GIS and metagenomics to enhance wastewater surveillance
Gangware et al. Phylogenetic placements of reads improve accuracy, resolution, and timeliness of WBE
Iglesias-Mendoza Tribal community engagement for wastewater testing of infectious diseases
Jensen & Weisbeck A mixed-methods approach to ensuring representativeness of Colorado’s wastewater sentinel surveillance sites
Kuehn et al. Antibiotic resistance genes in wastewater sources
Li et al. Missouri wastewater surveillance for respiratory viruses: expanding pathogen monitoring to enhance public health preparedness
Maresso et al. Agnostic sequencing: a panacea for pathogen wastewater epidemiology
Moore et al. Improving recovery of respiratory viruses from Arizona wastewater
Mosavi et al. Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants in Georgia wastewater using dPCR
Robertson et al. An interactive dashboarding tool for visualizing wastewater-based pathogen sequencing data
Saingam et al. Framework design study of nursing care facility wastewater testing of Candida auris
Salinas et al. Wastewater data to action: a framework for informing local public health
Schmidt et al. Correlation between wastewater surveillance signals and emergency department visits for respiratory viruses: a multi-pathogen analysis
Recordings
Please find the 2025 Summit recordings linked below.
2024 Summit
The 2024 Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit was held in Atlanta and online on August 12 and 13. Please find links to some of the posters presented during the event, as well as the Summit recordings, below.
Posters
Baral et al. Norovirus trends and seasonality in Baltimore wastewater: year-long insight
Beavers et al. Antibiotic resistance genes in Marquette County wastewater
Firmage et al. The combined utility of the BIOFIRE FILMARRAY research configurations for influent wastewater surveillance
Franklin et al. Wastewater based psychoactive substance monitoring
Holm et al. Wastewater and environmental surveillance in Malawi: past precedent and future opportunities
Johnson et al. Evaluating the added value of integrating wastewater data to forecast hospital admissions
McCrory et al. Sewage sleuths – using wastewater surveillance for illness prevention communications
McCunn et al. Development and validation of a digital PCR assay for monitoring measles, mumps, and rubella in wastewater
Paulos et al. Methods comparison for respiratory virus detection in wastewater liquid and solid phases
Ram et al. Wastewater case study: putative identification of an individual human patient infected with a rare SARS-CoV-2 variant
Shackelford et al. Clinical and fecal sludge surveillance for Vibrio cholerae in Dzaleka Refugee Camp
Sovic et al. MixviR: a user-Friendly computational tool For exploring genomic data from environmental samples containing mixed pathogen lineages
Whitehill et al. Surveys of on-site facility-level wastewater sampling points were piloted at 13 post-acute facilities across 3 U.S. regions
Recordings
Please find the 2024 Summit recordings linked below.
2023 Summit Recordings
The 2023 Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit was a one-day, one-track event held in Chicago and online on October 1. Please find the Summit recordings linked below, and the outputs from the breakout sessions — focused on a “deeper dive” into wastewater surveillance program hurdles — here.
