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Ethics Guidance for Environmental Scientists Engaged in Surveillance of Wastewater for SARS-CoV-2
- Source :
- Environmental sciencetechnology. 55(13)
- Publication Year :
- 2021
-
Abstract
- The COVID-19 pandemic has given rise to rapid and widespread international pursuit of wastewater surveillance for genetic signals of SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing the pandemic. Environmental scientists and engineers familiar with the techniques required for this endeavor have responded. Many of the environmental scientists engaged in these investigations have not necessarily had experience with the ethical obligations associated with generating and handling human health data. The Canadian Water Network facilitated adoption of these surveillance methods by creating a national coalition, which included a public health advisory group that recognized a need for ethics guidance for the wastewater approach to public health surveillance. This Policy Analysis addresses that need and is based on a review of relevant ethics literature tightly focused on ethics applicable to public health surveillance. That review revealed that classical health bioethics governing clinical practice and general public health ethics guidance did not adequately address key issues in wastewater surveillance. The 2017 World Health Organization guidelines, directly based on a systematic literature review, specifically addressed ethical issues in public health surveillance. The application of relevant ethical guidance to wastewater surveillance is analyzed and summarized for environmental scientists.
- Subjects :
- medicine.medical_specialty
Canada
Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)
education
Surveillance Methods
010501 environmental sciences
Wastewater
01 natural sciences
Public health surveillance
Political science
Pandemic
medicine
Environmental Chemistry
Humans
Pandemics
0105 earth and related environmental sciences
SARS-CoV-2
Public health
COVID-19
General Chemistry
Bioethics
Policy analysis
6. Clean water
3. Good health
Coronavirus
Systematic review
Engineering ethics
Subjects
Details
- ISSN :
- 15205851
- Volume :
- 55
- Issue :
- 13
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Environmental sciencetechnology
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....ee994e76774f6f5bf2ef47eca5b3b9a4