Online dashboards for SARS-CoV-2 wastewater data need standard best practices: an environmental health communication agenda

AbstractThe rapid development of scientific communication approaches for environmental surveillance data with online information dashboards has been done in the absence of a global organizing body during the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic. We aim to make a case for standardization of dashboards presenting SARS-CoV-2 wastewater data. The list of dashboards was compiled as of March 31, 2022. The 127 dashboards reviewed represented 27 countries using a range of line/bar graphs, maps, and tables with symbol presentation. We identified 96 separate units of measure for the wastewater SARS-CoV-2 data. There was also inconsistency in using linear or log scale. Twenty-five percent of dashboards presented SARS-CoV-2 variant monitoring. Only 30% (38/125) of dashboards provided downloadable source data. There is great opportunity to improve scientific communication though the adoption of uniform data presentation conventions or standards for this field.