engleski

A novel approach for monitoring tobacco use in local communities by wastewater analysis

Objective. We propose a novel approach for measuring tobacco use in a community through the chemical analysis of nicotine metabolites in urban wastewater. It offers frequent monitoring and “real-time”, “evidence-based” estimates of tobacco consumption which may complement epidemiological surveillance systems normally repeated only every few years. Methods. Two urinary metabolites of nicotine, namely cotinine and trans-3’-hydroxycotinine, were selected as biomarkers of tobacco consumption in urban wastewater. During smoking a known amount of nicotine is absorbed and after metabolism is excreted as metabolites in urine, and ends up in the wastewater, so quantitative analysis of the metabolites in wastewater allows to back-calculate the nicotine collectively absorbed by the population producing the sewage and, indirectly, their tobacco use. Representative samples of wastewater were collected from sewage treatment plants in eight Italian cities and analysed by mass spectrometry. Concentrations of the metabolites were used to estimate nicotine consumption. Results. Tobacco consumption in the cities under study were used to estimate prevalence, in order to compare the results of this study with prevalences from population surveys. Prevalences calculated with the two methods were closely comparable and wastewater analysis was sufficiently sensitive to confirm the differences in tobacco consumption between northern and southern Italy, previously described in population surveys. Conclusions. The approach described can serve as supplementary indicator of tobacco consumption in local communities. This approach can provide objective and updated information, which are useful to assess the efficacy of tobacco control interventions, with the aim of designing and implementing effective tobacco control plans.

wastewater analysis; nicotine metabolites; cotinine; trans-3’-hydroxycotinine; tobacco use

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