Resistance Overview | The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy

Resistance Overview

A broader view of resistance indicators: compare all levels and trends, in the United States and abroad

BACKGROUND

Scientists have been aware of antibiotic resistance since shortly after the discovery of penicillin, western medicine’s first antibiotic.  To a certain extent resistance is inevitable—as we use an antibiotic over time, resistance to the drug gradually evolves, making infections more difficult to treat and necessitating new and more powerful drugs.  However, the development of resistance is also impacted by our actions—for example by how often we prescribe and use antibiotics, and how well we control and prevent infections acquired in the hospital. In order to design sensible solutions that prolong the useful life of antibiotics, policymakers need to be able to provide factual evidence, identify trends and measure the scope of the resistance problem.

By aggregating all combinations of pathogens and antibiotics available in our data the Resistance Overview provides a cohesive set of tools to compare resistance levels of different bacterial species across time and space . The World Resistance at a Glance component gives a simple atlas view of all pathogen data for 2009; The Trend Comparisons portion offers a quick and easy way to compare 1999-2010 resistance profiles across species at the national level, as well as within each census division.

COMPONENTGUIDE:

>> WORLD RESISTANCE AT A GLANCE

Interact with the visualization by using the left-hand side dropdown menu to map 2009 resistance rates for separate bug-drug combinations or an overll resistance score; Click CHAPTER 2 to view as a histogram

>> TRENDS BY U.S. CENSUS DIVISION

To interact with the time histogram, use the data table to select from a list of antibiotic-organism combinations. View up to 4 combinations simultaneously by holding the CTRL button during your selection. You can change the geographical level from the drop-down menu (NATIONAL or one of nine census divisions). 

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Resistance Overview The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy