2020年经济学人污水的社会经济学(1)（打印版）

You are what you eat, the saying goes. It therefore follows that what you excrete gives away a lot about you.

俗话说，你吃什么就是什么。所以，你的排泄物泄露了很多关于你的信息。

Writ large, that information might yield useful demographic clues about particular neighbourhoods.

所以，这些信息或许为某个社区的人口结构提供了有用的线索。

This, at least, is the thinking behind a study by Saer Samanipour of the University of Amsterdam, in the Netherlands.

至少，这是荷兰阿姆斯特丹大学Saer Samanipour的一项研究背后的想法。

Dr Samanipour has been analysing sewage, and has shown that it gives a pretty good profile of an area's population.

Samanipour博士一直在研究污水，其研究已表明，污水能够很好地反应一片区域内的人口。

To make sure that his analysis reflected the most up to date demographic information Dr Samanipour timed it to coincide with a census.

为了确保他的分析能够反应最新的人口统计信息，Samanipour博士安排实验和人口普查同步进行。

The one he chose was that conducted in Australia, in 2016, so he called on the assistance of a group of colleagues from the University of Queensland.

他选择的是2016年澳大利亚的一次普查，所以他请求来自昆士兰大学的同事给予帮助。

As they describe in a paper in Environmental Science and Technology Letters,

正如他们在《Environmental Science and Technology Letters》的一篇论文中所述，

team members collected samples from more than 100 sewage-treatment plants for five to seven consecutive days around the time of the census.

在人口普查期间，团队成员连续5至7天从100多个污水处理厂收集样本。

They analysed these for 40 chemicals that past research has suggested have socioeconomic significance.

他们分析了40种化学物质，过去的研究表明这些物质具有社会经济学意义。

Nicotine, for example, is associated more with rural populations than urban ones, because people living in the countryside are more likely to smoke.

例如，尼古丁与农村人口的联系比城市人口更多，因为生活在农村的人更有可能吸烟。

Caffeine consumption correlates with education levels. Amphetamine use tracks levels of crime.

咖啡因摄入与教育程度相关。安非他命的使用能追踪犯罪程度。

In total, the team looked at the concentrations of six legal recreational drugs, caffeine and nicotine among them,

总体上，该团队观察了六种合法娱乐性药物，其中包括咖啡因和尼古丁；

two illegal recreational drugs (amphetamine and methamphetamine),

两种非法娱乐性药物（安非他命和甲基苯丙胺）；

seven opioids (the legality of which depends on the circumstances), eight antidepressants and antipsychotics,

七种阿片类药物（其合法性取决于所在环境）；八种抗抑郁药和抗精神病药；

nine other pharmaceuticals, two artificial sweeteners and six markers of diet,

九种其他药物；两种人工增甜剂以及六种饮食标志物，

such as enterolactone, a substance that shows how much fibre people are consuming.

如肠内酯，一种显示人们摄入了多少纤维的物质。

All of the chemical information collected from each treatment plant was paired with data from the census

将所有从每个污水处理厂收集到的化学物质信息与普查进行匹配，

to create a model of what the wastewater chemistry of populations with particular socioeconomic characteristics looks like.

并创建一个模型，该模型反映了具有某种社会经济学特征的人口的污水化学物质是什么样的。