Inferring Spatial Transmission Dynamics of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Across Houston Wastewater Treatment Plants

Jose R. Palacio; Katherine B. Ensor; Julia Schedler; Rebecca Schneider; Kaavya Domakonda; Loren Hopkins; Lauren B. Stadler; Sharmila Bhandari

arXiv · 2608.08823

Inferring Spatial Transmission Dynamics of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Across Houston Wastewater Treatment Plants

Jose R. Palacio·Katherine B. Ensor·Julia Schedler·Rebecca Schneider·Kaavya Domakonda·Loren Hopkins·Lauren B. Stadler·Sharmila Bhandari

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Abstract

Wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE) is an effective, noninvasive tool for tracking community-level circulation of respiratory viruses, yet standard renewal models treat each wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) in isolation, even though respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) spreads through contact networks that cross service-area boundaries. Using weekly data from $m = 15$ Houston WWTPs, we extend a single-plant Bayesian renewal model by coupling neighboring WWTPs via a spatial weight matrix built using a novel Population Extended Hausdorff Distance, defined as a directional distance between WWTPs. This distance measures how far a WWTP must reach to access a meaningful share of a neighboring WWTP's residents. A single parameter $\rho$ controls spatial mixing in the plant-level growth rate, allowing us to recover the effective reproduction number $R_{it}$. We find that $\rho$ is estimated well above zero, indicating substantial cross-WWTP transmission that the independent-plant model cannot capture. Spatial coupling reshapes plant-level $R_{it}$ relative to the independent-plant baseline ($\rho = 0$) while leaving inferred infection trajectories essentially unchanged.

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Jose R. Palacio, Katherine B. Ensor, Julia Schedler, Rebecca Schneider, Kaavya Domakonda, Loren Hopkins, Lauren B. Stadler, Sharmila Bhandari. 2026-08-09. Inferring Spatial Transmission Dynamics of Respiratory Syncytial Virus Across Houston Wastewater Treatment Plants. https://arxiv.org/abs/2608.08823

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