Heather L. Rudolph

There is often insufficient prevention to ensure safe swimming environments. Recreation water illness (RWI), most commonly in the form of digestional track illness as well as skin, ear, and respiratory infections, are often caused by water contamination from human waste. Stercobilin is a very stable and suitable chemical biomarker of human waste that has the potential to be used for waste monitoring in public swimming facilities. Using solid phase extraction (SPE) techniques paired with high-resolution mass spectrometry (HRMS), we have developed a robust method used for swimming pool water monitoring to create safer swimming environments.