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Investigating alcohol consumption in China via wastewater-based epidemiology

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Abstract

Alcohol abuse and addiction is a public health issue of global concern. Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is a forceful and effective complementary tool for investigating chemical consumption. This study examined alcohol consumption in major cities of China via WBE and compared WBE estimates with other data sources. A simple and valid ultra-performance liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (UPLC-MS/MS) method was developed for the determination of two alcohol metabolites, ethyl glucuronide (EtG) and ethyl sulfate (EtS) in wastewater. The optimized method was applied to 62 sewage samples collected from wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in 31 provincial capital cities across China in the fourth quarter of 2020. The methodology established in this study was validated with the lower limit of quantification (LLOQ) up to 0.1 μg/L, good linearity in the range of 0.1–50 μg/L, intra-day and inter-day precision less than 5.58% and 5.55%, respectively, and the recoveries of the extracts were higher than 97.14%. The consumption range of alcohol estimated via WBE was 6.09 ± 4.56 ethanol/person/day (EPD) in the capital cities of China. Alcohol consumption varies significantly between cities in China, with WBE estimating lower alcohol consumption than WHO and lower than foreign countries. Investing in alcohol consumption based on WBE has great potential to accurately and efficiently estimate alcohol consumption.

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Funding

This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant Number 2022YFC3300900).

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Author notes

  1. Yan Yao and Jingya Wang have equally contributed as co-first authors.

Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of Pharmacy, China Pharmaceutical University, No. 24 Tongjiaxiang Road, Nanjing, 210009, People’s Republic of China

    Yan Yao, Yuling Zhong, Wenyu Chen & Mengxiang Su

  2. Department of Forensic Medicine, School of Basic Medical Sciences, Fudan University, Shanghai, 200032, People’s Republic of China

    Jingya Wang & Yulan Rao

Authors
  1. Yan Yao
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  2. Jingya Wang
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  3. Yuling Zhong
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  4. Wenyu Chen
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  6. Mengxiang Su
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Contributions

All authors contributed to the study’s conception and design. Material preparation, conceptualization, methodology, data collection, and analysis were performed by YZ, WC and YY. Resources, supervision, and project administration were performed by YR and MS. The first draft of the manuscript was written by YY and JW. All authors commented on previous versions of the manuscript and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Yulan Rao or Mengxiang Su.

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Yao, Y., Wang, J., Zhong, Y. et al. Investigating alcohol consumption in China via wastewater-based epidemiology. Environ Geochem Health 46, 24 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10653-023-01829-9

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