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There is a concern that moving from a soiled bedding sentinel program to environmental health monitoring is going to be more costly. However, this may not be the case as the cost depends on many factors. A recent paper from a large academic institution (~20,000 cage census) found that environmental health monitoring (specifically exhaust dust testing) was 26% less expensive for their institution as animal ordering, shipping, and maintenance costs were not incurred with environmental health monitoring (Luchins, 2020). Therefore, even if the PCR testing associated with environmental health monitoring is more costly than serology, all costs must be tallied to analyze the whole picture. Ultimately, each institution should perform their own cost analysis based on their institution size and the manuscript can be used as a guide for that assessment. Alternatively, institutions can use the EAD Cost Calculator from Charles River.
In addition, Luchins, et al. found that moving to exhaust dust testing reduced the amount of time the veterinary technician spent on the health monitoring program. For every veterinary technician, this amounted to ~1.5 hrs each week per 10,000 rodent cages. This extra time would be appreciated in any animal care and use program.