Search for: All records

Session co-presenters: Weir M, Mitchell J, Fung D, Ross K, Hannapel L, Edens C. Session: Legionella in the Built Environment: Emerging research, practices, and policies. American Public Health Association (APHA), Atlanta, GA, November 12, 2023. 

Livestock are a critical part of our food systems, yet their abundance globally has been cited as a driver of many environmental and human health concerns. Issues such as soil, water, and air pollution, greenhouse gas emissions, aquifer depletion, antimicrobial resistance genes, and zoonotic disease outbreaks have all been linked to livestock operations. While many studies have examined these issues at depth at local scales, it has been difficult to complete studies at regional or national scales due to the dearth of livestock data, hindering pollution mitigation or response time for tracing and monitoring disease outbreaks. In the U.S. the National Agricultural Statistics Service completes a Census once every 5 years that includes livestock, but data are only available at the county level leaving little inference that can be made at such a coarse spatiotemporal scale. While other data exist through some regulated permitting programs, there are significant data gaps in where livestock are raised, how many livestock are on site at a given time, and how these livestock and, importantly, their waste emissions, are managed. In this perspective, we highlight the need for better livestock data, then discuss the accessibility and key limitations of currently available data. We then feature some recent work to improve livestock data availability through remote-sensing and machine learning, ending with our takeaways to address these data needs for the future of environmental and public health management. 

Contamination of water with bacterial, viral, and protozoan pathogens can cause human diseases. Both humans and nonhumans can release these pathogens through their feces. To identify the sources of fecal contamination in the water environment, microbial source tracking (MST) approaches have been developed; however, the relationship between MST markers and pathogens is still not well understood most likely due to the lack of comprehensive datasets of pathogens and MST marker concentrations. In this study, we developed a novel microfluidic quantitative PCR (MFQPCR) platform for the simultaneous quantification of 37 previously validated MST markers, two fecal indicator bacteria (FIB), 22 bacterial, 11 viral, and five protozoan pathogens, and three internal amplification/process controls in many samples. The MFQPCR chip was applied to analyze pathogen removal rates during the wastewater treatment processes. In addition, multiple host-specific MST markers, FIB, and pathogens were successfully quantified in human and avian-impacted surface waters. While the genes for pathogens were relatively infrequently detected, positive correlations were observed between some potential pathogens such as Clostridium perfringens and Mycobacterium spp., and human MST markers. The MFQPCR chips developed in this study, therefore, can provide useful information to monitor and improve water quality. 

Abstract The disease burden from Legionella spp. infections has been increasing in many industrialized countries and, despite decades of scientific advances, ranks amongst the highest for waterborne diseases. We review here several key research areas from a multidisciplinary perspective and list critical research needs to address some of the challenges of Legionella spp. management in engineered environments. These include: (i) a consideration of Legionella species diversity and cooccurrence, beyond Legionella pneumophila only; (ii) an assessment of their environmental prevalence and clinical relevance, and how that may affect legislation, management, and intervention prioritization; (iii) a consideration of Legionella spp. sources, their definition and prioritization; (iv) the factors affecting Legionnaires’ disease seasonality, how they link to sources, Legionella spp. proliferation and ecology, and how these may be affected by climate change; (v) the challenge of saving energy in buildings while controlling Legionella spp. with high water temperatures and chemical disinfection; and (vi) the ecological interactions of Legionella spp. with other microbes, and their potential as a biological control strategy. Ultimately, we call for increased interdisciplinary collaboration between multiple research domains, as well as transdisciplinary engagement and collaboration across government, industry, and science as the way toward controlling and reducing Legionella-derived infections.