ASAP intervention, nitrogen treatment publications by HEP

Department of Health Education and Promotion faculty members have had their work published recently, including Drs. Guy Iverson and Charlie Humphrey in an ECU-centric collaboration featured in Environmental Processes. That paper is titled, “Quantifying Nitrogen Treatment by an In-stream Bioreactor in a Watershed Served by Septic Systems.”

Dr. Lori Ann Eldridge’s work is published in Research in Social and Administrative Pharmacy, titled, “ASAP: A pharmacy-level intervention to increase nonprescription syringe sales to reduce bloodborne illnesses.”

Eldridge represents ECU as a dedicated member of the Harm Reduction Research Lab at the University of Arizona’s College of Medicine, under the leadership of Dr. Beth Meyerson. This lab focuses on enhancing the health and well-being of people who use drugs. Eldridge and her colleagues published preliminary results on the Access to Syringes at Pharmacies (ASAP) intervention, which aims to increase syringe availability in pharmacies. Leveraging her expertise as a public health implementation scientist, Eldridge contributes significantly to this vital research, underscoring the importance of accessible syringe programs in improving public health outcomes and reducing the transmission of bloodborne pathogens. She added, “Syringe access in pharmacies saves lives and significantly reduced the transmission of bloodborne pathogen. This is public health in practice!”

For Iverson, Humphrey and others involved in their research, the paper points out that nitrogen from septic systems endangers water quality and aquatic ecosystems. Novel use of an in-stream bioreactor to treat nitrogen from septic systems was presented, and this effectively reduced nitrogen concentration and masses. Nitrogen-chloride ratios and nitrate isotope data suggested denitrification occurred. Therefore, the paper highlights this approach in other basins may help meet nitrogen management goals.