Wastewater Surveillance Dashboard

During 2020-2021, LegacyWorks partnered with Santa Barbara County to develop the Community Data Dashboard to provide residents and leaders with timely access to trustworthy data on COVID-19. In 2022 our partnership expanded COVID-19 monitoring and reporting through implementing wastewater surveillance. Wastewater surveillance can detect the SARS-CoV-2 virus and other infectious diseases in a community early on, before testing data can get reported to public health officials. Because it doesn’t rely on individuals getting tested it is a more accurate and equitable way to track the spread of infectious diseases. In 2022 we developed and launched a new Community Health Wastewater Surveillance Dashboard that reports out on the results of wastewater surveillance undertaken by the City of Santa Barbara since early in the pandemic. The data has been used by the medical community, the UCSB Campus Task Force team, the Countywide Infectious Disease Task Team, and other local community members to monitor the pandemic and inform decision making. You can see the dashboard at www.sbcwastewater.org.