In January 2024, NACCHO released a brief covering mentor/mentee work in the latest cohort of NACCHO’s Wastewater Surveillance Mentorship Program—where local health departments (LHDs) with demonstrated experience in utilizing wastewater surveillance are matched with LHDs seeking guidance, tools, and resources while in the early stages of developing a wastewater surveillance program. The following is a recent update from Arizona-based mentee Pima County Health Department (PCHD).
Pima County has been involved in wastewater surveillance for SARS-CoV-2 since the inception of the CDC’s National Wastewater Surveillance System and has since expanded their own program to include Mpox monitoring. As a mentee in NACCHO’s second cohort of the Wastewater Surveillance Mentorship Program, PCHD sought to gain further technical assistance and recommendations as the department communicates its wastewater surveillance findings with impacted communities, while also continuing to expand program capacity. The health department’s specific goals included creating an ethical communication and intervention toolkit, developing staff capacity to effectively present data to its communities, and identifying additional targets of interest that will meet the community’s public health needs.
While participating in the program, PCHD worked towards achieving their goals with their mentor’s support. They received guidance from their mentor on developing a systematic process for analyzing wastewater concentration levels and a memorandum of understanding on data sharing with external wastewater laboratories. They also successfully conducted five workshops with different communities within their jurisdiction to better understand public questions and concerns related to wastewater surveillance. Lastly, with support from their county’s Ethics Committee, they have developed and are finalizing an ethical communication and intervention toolkit for wastewater surveillance.
An in-depth look at Pima County’s ethical communication and intervention toolkit is forthcoming.
NACCHO’s brief looked at best practices from both of our cohorts in the mentorship program. The best practices identified were the following:
1. Build relationships with local jurisdictions with established wastewater surveillance systems
2. Consider the unique needs of a jurisdiction
3. Identify key stakeholders and build partnerships early
4. Start collecting surveillance data in advance
5. Create a communication strategy
6. Keep organized records
To see detailed best practices and to learn about the other mentorship participants, access the full brief here.
