History & About the PHES ODM Project

In response to the global health crisis brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic, wastewater-based surveillance emerged as a pivotal tool for tracking the spread of the virus. The global adoption of wastewater-based surveillance reflects its strength, such as its capacity to shed light on the spatiotemporal progression of diseases without being influenced by the accessibility of clinical testing or the health-seeking tendencies of populations. Yet, its rapid uptake introduced new challenges, chiefly, a lack of standardized, interoperable data.

Recognizing this gap, the PHES ODM was conceived at the intersection of this global need. Originating in Canada, it emerged from a partnership between prominent academic labs: the Delatolla Research Laboratory at the University of Ottawa, the Vanrolleghem Laboratory at Université Laval, and Dr. Doug Manuel at the Ottawa Hospital Research Institute. Notably, the Public Health Agency of Canada and the Ontario Wastewater Surveillance Initiative were key collaborators in its inception. As an open, collaborative, multidiscipline initiative, it soon garnered international traction, bringing together laboratories and budding surveillance programs to understand and standardize methods of collecting and using wastewater data.

With the vision to "make the collection and use of robust, interoperable data as easy as possible," the ODM was devised. The inaugural edition of the ODM integrated insights and collaborations from over 50 surveillance programs and testing laboratories from across the globe. The primary goal was to establish a comprehensive data model, with a dictionary encompassing all identified surveillance programs, dictionaries, and datasets. Beyond a data model, the ODM collaborators envisioned a supporting data pipeline 'toolkit' to facilitate data collection, validation, storage, and sharing.

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Acknowledging our Peers & the Greater Wastewater Data Community

The PHES-ODM is an open, collaborative project, and has been from the start. The advancements that happened during the pandemic, and the speed with which they were they were achieved, were only possible because of open collaborations between projects, disciplines, and researchers. As a project born out of that ecosystem, we are grateful for our peers, other researchers, and data models who have helped to build and define this landscape. Notably, the United States Centres for Disease Control's National Wastewater Sentinel System (USCDC NWSS), the European Nucleotide Association (ENA), the Public Health Alliance for Genomic Epidemiology (PHA4GE), the National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI), and national, regional, and academic laboratories. Others have made tremendous contributions to this field. Through their work either with us, or which they've shared freely, we have been able to build the PHES-ODM and build toward more interoperable data. None of this work would have been possible without this community.