The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy

AIMS

ResistanceMap is a web-based collection of tools that allow accessible, engaging, and interactive exploration of more than 50 antimicrobial surveillance indicators from North America and Europe. The aim of the atlas is to provide researchers and policymakers a much-needed source of information about national and regional trends in antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic usage. 

The information in the atlas is organized in a simple and intuitive fashion. There are two main categories – antibiotic resistance and antibiotic use – which further branch into subpages for individual organisms, antibiotic classes, and organism-antibiotic combinations. Every page provides background information, a summary, and a guide to interacting with the visualizations.

INTENDED AUDIENCE

ResistanceMap is a useful tool for researchers, medical care providers, and the media in understanding and communicating the rise of antimicrobial resistance in the United States and how it compares with levels in other developed nations. Audiences include

• Public health researchers, policy-makers and planners
• Infectious disease specialists
• Medical and clinical microbiologists or pharmacists
• Media
• Public

DEVELOPMENT

The ResistanceMap web page received a major redesign in September 2011: new data from more countries, regions, and time periods were reorganized and loaded on an interactive, flash-based platform. The old ResistanceMap videographs, which mapped outpatient and inpatient resistance trends of major bacterial species in United States census divisions, are still available on a separate subpage.

SOURCES OF FUNDING

The initiative is sponsored by Extending the Cure, a research and consultative effort that frames the growing problem of antibiotic resistance as a challenge in managing a shared societal resource. It is funded in part by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation through its Pioneer Portfolio, which supports innovative projects that may lead to breakthrough improvements in health and health care. It is a project of the Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy.