Environmental Health Monitoring
Presentations

The 3Rs Collaborative’s EHM Initiative and other key stakeholders have organized a number of presentations about rodent health monitoring and replacing soiled bedding sentinels with environmental health monitoring. 

Presentations

  • AALAS 2025 – Environmental Health Monitoring: Evidence, Quarantine, Outbreaks, and Positive Findings
    • Join us in Long Beach California to discuss: (1) Using EHM in rodent quarantine as a replacement & refinement (2) how to troubleshoot outbreaks with unique challenges in immunodeficient rodent populations monitored by EHM, and (3) how to address positive PCR results with EHM
  • UFAW 2025 – No More Canaries in Coal Mines: A Systematic Review of Environmental Health Monitoring
  • FELASA 2025 – No More Canaries in Coal Mines: A Systematic Review of Environmental Health Monitoring
  • AALAS 2024 – Pushing the Boundaries of Environmental Health Monitoring: What’s Next
    • In this sessions, presenters present on (1) an overview of the EHM systematic literature review, (2) detection & origin of LDV by EHM, (3) detection and elimination of P. murina by EHM(4) EHM for other rodents & unexpected false positives, and (5) EHM and the role of the IACUC.
  • AALAS 2023 – Environmental Health Monitoring: A Holistic Approach for All Housing Types
    • In this session, 5 presenters discussed updates from the 3RsC EHM systematic review, research & case studies from 3 varied institutions with mixed house, 3RsC resources, and a brief note on a recently published article.
  • Responsible Research in Practice 2023 – Guide to Environmental Health Monitoring
    • During this session, Dr. Kerith Luchins (Director of Rodent Clinical Services, University of Chicago) discussed a systematic review of the scientific evidence behind environmental health monitoring (EHM) and shared her experience of implementing EHM as a replacement for rodent sentinels. Specifically she discussed:

      – why research institutions are increasingly replacing their soiled bedding sentinel rodents with environmental health monitoring (EHM);
      – a systematic review of the scientific evidence behind EHM;
      – common challenges and solutions including options for racks that have cage level filtration;
      – free resources developed to support facilities to implement this replacement.

  • AALAS 2022 – Making the Switch to Environmental Health Monitoring: Evidence, Data, & Practicalities
    • Systematic review evidence for environmental health monitoring
    • Benchmarking, barriers, & solutions for environmental health monitoring
    • Sentinel free soiled bedding sampling
    • Academic perspectives on making the switch across caging types
    • Industry perspectives on making the switch across sites & caging types
  • AALAS 2021 – Switching to Environmental Health Monitoring for Rodents; How, Why & Will It Cost More