Sewage contains the excreted biomarkers of endogenous human metabolism that directly reflects the exposure and stressors placed upon an entire contributing community. The quantitative measurement of these specific biomarkers in sewage from communities allows the averaged patterns of factors related to lifestyle, disease and environment to be used for the assessment of community health. The Action will develop and expand an existing pan-European inter-disciplinary network, bringing together experts from relevant disciplines interested in the application and development of using the quantitative measurement of human biomarkers in sewage to evaluate lifestyle, health and exposure at the community level. In order to achieve its objectives the Action will manage a common Europe-wide testing platform that will develop best practice, provide a significant increase in the comparable spatio-temporal resolution of available data, coordinate the development of new biomarkers in sewage with focus on new psychoactive substances and new biomarkers for the community assessment of factors such as environment, health, lifestyle and diet, and integrate sewage-based approaches with other available metrics. The Action will have a major impact on the development of this emerging field and ensure that the technology is used in a responsible and effective manner and its potentially fully exploited in collaboration with end-users.
