First nation-wide estimation of tobacco consumption in Spain using wastewater-based epidemiology

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.scitotenv.2020.140384Get rights and content

Highlights

  • Nicotine metabolites measured in 17 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs)

  • The nicotine consumed was estimated through wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE).

  • The mean per capita nicotine consumed daily was 2.2 mg (ca. 2.8 cigarettes).

  • Largest Spanish study on nicotine by WBE

  • The consumption estimates through WBE are consistent with official sales data.

Abstract

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has become a very useful tool to monitor a population's drug consumption or exposure to environmental and food contaminants. In this work, WBE has been applied to estimate tobacco consumption in seven Spanish regions. To this end, 24 h composite wastewater samples were taken daily for one week in 17 wastewater treatment plants, covering altogether a population of ca. 6 million inhabitants. The samples were treated by enzymatic deconjugation and the wastewater content of two human-specific nicotine metabolites (namely, cotinine and trans-3′-hydroxycotinine) was measured to estimate the daily consumption of nicotine. The population-weighted average nicotine consumption in the seven analyzed regions was 2.2 g/(day∙1000 inh.), without any daily pattern. This average estimated nicotine consumption value agreed with the value derived from official tobacco sales data. Differences in consumption among the seven studied regions were found, being Galicia, the region with the lowest rate, and the Basque Country and Catalonia those with the highest rates. However, no conclusive correlation was found between those values and the prevalence data taken from two different national surveys, nor sociodemographic and health data. This study demonstrates that this tool can complement other indicators in order to accurately assess tobacco consumption rates at regional and national levels and provides the most extensive application of the approach in the Spanish territory.

Introduction

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) has become a well-established technique for assessing the consumption of several legal and illicit drugs (Lorenzo and Picó, 2019; Subedi and Burgard, 2019). This approach is based on the measurement of the excreted biomarkers (parent compounds or metabolites) of the substances of interest in wastewater from a specific population. Subsequently, some back-calculations are performed to estimate consumption rates (Choi et al., 2018). WBE has been applied so far to estimate consumption of illicit drugs (González-Mariño et al., 2020), new psychoactive substances (Bijlsma et al., 2019), caffeine (Senta et al., 2015), alcohol (Boogaerts et al., 2016), nicotine (Castiglioni et al., 2015; Rodríguez-Álvarez et al., 2014), some pharmaceuticals and personal care products (PPCPs) (Lopardo et al., 2018), and also to evaluate the exposure to different contaminants, e.g. phthalates (González-Mariño et al., 2017) or pesticides (Rousis et al., 2016).

Nicotine (NIC) is the most consumed substance of licit abuse after alcohol worldwide (Global Drug Survey, 2019). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), smoking is one of the main risk factors for several chronic diseases, such as cancer, and respiratory and cardiovascular diseases (World Health Organization, 2020). Although legislation on its consumption and sale has been tightened in recent years, its use is still very prevalent worldwide (Global Drug Survey, 2019). In Spain, ca. 22% of the adult population consumes tobacco daily (Instituto Nacional de Estadística, 2018). Thus, identifying areas and regions with the highest incidence of consumption, and potential reasons for these figures, is crucial to design strategies to reduce tobacco use and evaluate the success of the actions undertaken (Drope et al., 2018). Furthermore, other sociodemographic factors, such as the average age or the unemployment rate, and the relationship with factors usually associated with tobacco use, such as the incidence of pulmonary or cardiovascular diseases need to be explored.

So far, the main sources of information to determine the prevalence of tobacco use are self-reported surveys, sales statistics, and medical diagnosis records. However, conventional approaches typically underestimate the actual prevalence due to non-response bias and bias in the selection of the sampled populations (case of surveys), the illicit trade markets that are not taken into account (case of sales records), and incomplete medical reports (Subedi and Burgard, 2019). WBE provides additional information to these traditional sources, and it is considered as a fast and not overly expensive technique to complement and validate consumption figures (Baz-Lomba et al., 2016; Bijlsma et al., 2018).

WBE has been used to estimate tobacco consumption in different countries including the United States (Chen et al., 2019), Australia (Lai et al., 2018; Mackie et al., 2019), China (Gao et al., 2020; Zheng et al., 2017), Maldives (Fallati et al., 2020), Italy (Senta et al., 2015; Castiglioni et al., 2015), Spain (Rodríguez-Álvarez et al., 2014; Baz-Lomba et al., 2016), and other European countries (Baz-Lomba et al., 2016; Lopes et al., 2014; Mackul'ak et al., 2015; van Wel et al., 2016). In most published studies, the metabolites of NIC, cotinine (COT), trans-3′-hydroxycotinine (OH-COT), and their glucuronides have been analyzed, and back-calculations performed to estimate the amount of NIC consumed by the population. To a lesser extent, other biomarkers of tobacco consumption, such as the alkaloids anabasine and anatabine, have also been used (Tscharke et al., 2016). These compounds are exclusively found in tobacco and not in the products used for nicotine replacement therapies (NRT), so they can be used to discern nicotine metabolites in wastewater coming from such products. However, their concentrations in tobacco are much lower than NIC and their determination in wastewater far more difficult, while there is no data on metabolism for back-calculating tobacco use (Mackie et al., 2019).

The aim of this study was to perform the most ambitious assessment of tobacco consumption in Spain by means of WBE. To this end, 17 wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) from 13 cities belonging to seven different regions were sampled every day during a whole week. NIC metabolites, COT and OH-COT, were measured in the wastewater samples to estimate NIC consumption. The results obtained through the WBE approach were compared with consumption estimates derived from the official data on tobacco sales and with survey data on smoking prevalence. Moreover, potential correlations between tobacco consumption and socio-economic and health conditions of the population were explored.

Section snippets

Reagents and materials

High-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC)-grade methanol and acetic acid were supplied by Merck (Darmstadt, Germany); the enzyme β-glucuronidase (from Helix pomatia, Type H-2), ammonium acetate, sodium acetate, and sodium chloride were obtained from Sigma–Aldrich (Steinheim, Germany). GHP polypropylene syringe filters (0.22 μm) were acquired from Merck. Ultrapure water was obtained from a Milli-Q water generator (Millipore, Bedford, MA, USA). Standards of COT and OH-COT, as well as their

Levels of NIC metabolites in wastewater

COT and OH-COT were detected in all samples analyzed at average concentrations per WWTP ranging from 0.6 to 7.7 μg/L and from 0.9 to 13.3 μg/L, respectively, being the lowest values found in the WWTP of Santiago de Compostela and the highest ones in Móstoles and some sampling points in Catalonia (Table S3). Some authors performed the back-calculations for the estimation of NIC using both metabolites (as sum) (Castiglioni et al., 2015), however, other authors preferred to use only COT, due to

Conclusions

The results estimated in this study of NIC consumption using both metabolites (COT and OH-COT) are comparable, with no specific trend of consumption observed between the different days of the week. The results of tobacco use differ between the different cities and regions, but they are not correlated with the results of prevalence of consumption reflected in the official surveys. However, these estimated values are a better approximation to the actual consumption reflected by the official sales

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Rosa Montes:Resources, Investigation, Formal analysis, Visualization, Writing - original draft.Rosario Rodil:Visualization, Supervision, Writing - review & editing.Andreu Rico:Resources, Supervision, Visualization, Writing - review & editing.Rafael Cela:Supervision, Writing - review & editing.Iria González-Mariño:Resources, Investigation, Writing - review & editing.Félix Hernández:Resources, Writing - review & editing.Lubertus Bijlsma:Resources, Writing - review & editing.Alberto Celma:

Declaration of competing interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Financial support

This study was supported by MINECO/AEI projects (CTM2016-81935-REDT, CTM2017-84763-C3-2-R, CTM2017-84763-C3-1-R, CTM2017-84763-C3-3-R), MICINN project (CEX2018-000794-S), Galician Council of Culture, Education and Universities (ED481D 2017/003 and ED431C2017/36), cofunded by FEDER/ERDF.

Sampling and analytical support

Viaqua and Concello de Santiago, Jordi Palatsi from AQUALIA (Lleida WWTP), Cristian Mesa and Angela Vidal from Aigues de Barcelona (Barcelona WWTP), Santiago Querol and Sara Gargallo from Sociedad de Fomento

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