Goal
This project aims to guide national and global decision-making around antibiotic exposure targets by evaluating which interventions are best placed to achieve sustainable levels of antibiotic use in humans.
Lead
Prof. Michael Sharland at City St George’s, University of London and University of Oxford and Dr. Koen Pouwels at Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Science
Collaborators
- Princeton University
- One Health Trust
- Inserm
- CGD
- HITAP (Health Intervention and Technology Assessment Program)
Funder
The Wellcome Trust
What we did
We are developing and piloting a range of methods and tools to inform the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) policy goals at the national level. By generating models that predict the health and economic consequences of antibiotic exposure, we will estimate which antibiotic exposure targets are optimal, balancing sufficient antibiotic access (ensuring the availability of treatment for bacterial infections) while limiting antibiotic overuse (which drives the spread of antibiotic resistance). In calibrating these models to different countries and contexts (starting with Thailand and the UK), we will estimate the cost-effectiveness of achieving optimal antibiotic exposure targets using different potential public health interventions, such as vaccination, rapid diagnostics and antibiotic prescribing policies. The project is ongoing, with various phases of development, piloting, evaluation, and implementation, and is global in scope, involving multiple countries and sectors.
Key learnings
Ongoing
Outputs
The key deliverables include a range of open-access tools for AMR policy assessment, including tools that synthesise estimates of global antibiotic use and predict optimal antibiotic exposure targets in specific populations, as well as frameworks for conducting Health Technology Assessment to assess the cost-effectiveness of interventions aimed at reducing antibiotic overuse. This project aims to provide a comprehensive health economic framework for prioritising interventions to optimise antibiotic use nationally and globally.