What is the relationship between spatiotemporal epidemic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, vaccine efficacy in school zones, and prolonged COVID-19 burdens?

Project started: January 1, 2022
Department or Agency: Guilford County Health Department, North Carolina

Share this project

Topics
Covid-19

Project Overview

Summary

The study - a research and engagement partnership - aims to  fill critical scientific knowledge gaps in exposure science and the relationship between spatiotemporal epidemic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in wastewater, vaccine efficacy in school zones, and prolonged COVID-19 burdens, three areas of public health importance. Anticipated results could be significant for populations impacted by environmental injustice and differentially burdened by SARS-CoV-2 in heavily occupied and variably vaccinated urban school zones and neighborhoods.

Anticipated deliverables

Planned use of results

Project partners can use the data to provide guidance for how to address the inequality and disproportionate burden of the pandemic on underserved populations. They can also maintain the surveillance system and continue to develop the partnership as a model for future infectious disease emergency action preparedness and surveillance.

Funding

The NC Office of Strategic Partnerships is providing funding for this project to support a graduate student. The North Carolina Collaboratory is supporting this project with in-kind contributions of a qPCR machine for the duration of the study and relevant equipment training.

Data

The project team is collecting wastewater samples from various Guilford County school zone sites, selected based on poverty level and vaccination rates.

The project is in progress.

We plan to post results and deliverables when the project is complete. In the meantime, we welcome questions about the project.

Project point of contact

Dongyang “Sunny” Deng

Associate Professor, College of Science and Technology

NC A&T State University

ddeng@ncat.edu


Project Team

NC A&T State University

NC Department of Health and Human Services

Guilford County Health Department

North Carolina Collaboratory

The NC Office of Strategic Partnerships communicates and checks regularly with Project Portal partners for updates to projects.

This project portal was developed by the NC Office of Strategic Partnerships and The Policy Lab at Brown University. If you have ideas for how to improve it, please let us know!