Transcript presentation

CULTURAL AND SOCIOECONOMIC
DETERMINANTS OF ANTIBIOTIC
CONSUMPTION IN THE U.S.
Health Grand Challenge 2011
Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics & Policy
Megan Orlando
Internship Details
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The Center for Disease Dynamics, Economics &
Policy (CDDEP) in Washington, D.C.
Non-profit organization committed to using research
to support better decision-making in health policy
My project fit in with CDDEP’s Extending the Cure
report, which characterizes antibiotic resistance as a
shared societal problem and evaluates policies to
improve antibiotic use
Research Question
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What are the relevant social, economic and cultural
factors that influence antibiotic use at the county level
in the United States?
Consumption literature focuses mostly on Europe
Regional comparisons in the U.S. do not use most recent
local data
Can we perform a statistical analysis on new data to
create a consumption function?
Data
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IMS Health provided antibiotic sales data by ZIP-code
for the calendar year 2007
Independent variables included demographic,
socioeconomic, health status, climate and
environmental health variables
State-level resistance data included in the consumption
function
Regional dummy variables used to proxy for cultural
factors
Consumption Patterns
Model Results
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Upon regression analysis, regional dummies are
always significant, indicating an unexplained
cultural factor
Income is consistently negatively associated with
antibiotic consumption
Consumption function includes over 15 significant
variables, models are still being refined
Summary
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This was my first long-term global health research
project and allowed me to investigate domestic
cultural and social determinants of antibiotic use
This project is one of the first statistical analyses of
consumption at the county level in the United States
I hope to use this research as the basis for my senior
independent work