As the mother of a six-year-old boy, I am unfortunately used to asking another person about their bathroom habits. But over spring break this year, I was involved in a conversation about the flushing habits of adults. It happened around a backyard barbecue at my family's home in Cincinnati, Ohio - also the site of this year's first-ever WEF Public Health and Water Conference and Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit. On the eve of that event, the conversation turned to what my plans for the next day would be. As I explained waste-water-based surveillance to aunts and uncles, I answered several questions: How does it work? How long has this been going on? What else can this technology and the science behind it tell us about the composition of a community? (Thanks to my college-aged niece for that one.) The next day, presenters and attendees of the Wastewater Disease Surveillance Summit posed those same questions. In a packed room and streaming online, a theme emerged several times: Poop Doesn't Lie.
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