Antibiotic Resistance Project

Resistant infections affect people from all walks of life— –young and old, healthy and chronically ill. These illnesses often start with something seemingly benign, like a simple cut or a routine medical procedure. 

Antibiotic resistance, a critical public health and national security threat, requires a robust arsenal of novel drugs that bacteria won’t readily outsmart.

Antibiotic use in outpatient health care settings, such as primary care offices and emergency rooms, represents the majority of dollars spent on antibiotics for human health care in the United States. Beginning in 2015, The Pew Charitable Trusts convened a panel of experts, including representatives from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and other public health and medical experts to analyze current outpatient antibiotic prescribing habits in the United States, determine targets for reducing inappropriate prescribing, and identify steps needed to reach these targets.

For years, leading public health and national security experts have sounded the alarm about the growing threat of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. The more antibiotics are used, the faster that bacteria evolve to resist them, giving rise to so-called “superbugs”—bacteria that are extremely difficult or impossible to treat with existing drugs.