Citation:
Date Presented:
February 4Abstract:
Although much of the generation of antibiotic resistance comes from the misuse of antibiotics in clinical settings, roughly 80 percent of the antibiotics sold in the United States (and over half of all antibiotics consumed globally) are used in livestock fields, making agriculture perhaps an important generator of antibiotic-resistant bacteria.
I assess the public health consequences of antibiotic usage in livestock: do bans on using antibiotics in livestock translate to significant effects on human resistant infection rates? The European Union instituted an EU-wide ban on antibiotics used for growth promotion in livestock in 2006, but several countries within the EU had preemptively banned antibiotics in the 1990s. Thus, I propose three comparisons to analyze the effect of agricultural antibiotic usage policy changes on human health:
- Agricultural antibiotic consumption vs. human resistant infection rates within Denmark,
- A difference-in-differences (DID) approach comparing Denmark to Sweden, and
- Denmark, Sweden, and other EU countries that banned antibiotic usage prior to the EU’s 2006 ban vs. other EU countries.
National-level data on rates of antibiotic-resistant bacterial infections, human consumption of antibiotics, and veterinary consumption of antibiotics has been obtained from the European Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance Network (EARS- Net), European Surveillance of Antimicrobial Consumption (ESAC-Net), and European Surveillance of Veterinary Antimicrobial Consumption (ESVAC). Data further stratified by municipality for Denmark and Sweden will be obtained from antibiotic resistance programs in both countries, DANMAP and STRAMA. Overall, results may provide clearer insight into the existence of a link between antibiotic usage in agriculture and human health.