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Paper short abstract

Wastewater surveillance (WWS) produces specific kind of knowledge to be used in governance and public health. This presentation addresses WWS as knowledge production through discussing some of its key characteristics, for example, concerning the population it speaks of.

Paper long abstract

Covid19-pandemic brought wastewater surveillance to the foreground in a new way. As a method of public health surveillance it has expanded and developed rapidly and it is now increasingly used to track spread of disease, to find emerging new pathogens and to inform public health policy. Still, it is not a new method. It has been used in the surveillance of polio and drug use already for decades. Even though wastewater might be easy substance to get, it is a complex substance to work with and analyse. In the presentation I ask what kind of knowledge practice wastewater analytics is by addressing some of the key characteristics of the practice. These relate to the population wastewater speaks of, normalisation of the sample as well as the trend wastewater communicates instead of specific, meaningful numbers. The presentation is based on qualitative analysis of interviews and publicly available materials on the topic (e.g., scientific articles and webinars). As wastewater surveillance is increasingly used for pandemic preparedness and monitoring of public health, it is crucial to understand the kind of knowledge it actually is and how it fits with the existing governance regimes.