London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine

Despite antimicrobial resistance (AMR) being a critical public health threat, there is little evidence on the socioeconomic determinants of antibiotic consumption. We examine whether gender affects antibiotic prescriptions in two settings, (i) high-income setting of United States and, (ii) Low-and middle income setting of India, with widespread over the counter sales of antibiotics. In the first study, we used the novel IQVIA Xponent dataset for antibiotic prescription data from pharmacies in the United States, to estimate monthly antibiotic usage at the county level for the year 2019. The primary method used was the county fixed effects regression model to estimate the impact of gender on antibiotic prescription. We find that women consume 10.76 percentage points (34%) more antibiotics than men. Even after excluding antibiotics consumed for urinary tract infections, potentially a key factor explaining the results, we find that women consumed 10.32 percentage points (31%) more antibiotics than men. In our second study, we conducted a cross-sectional survey of men and women within a household across 500 households in rural and urban Karnataka, India. The main aim of the survey was to understand the gender and regional (rural versus urban) differences in knowledge and use of antibiotics and AMR. We also explored whether household’s WASH and healthcare access and socio-economic factors affect their knowledge and use of antibiotics.

The speaker will discuss gender disparities in antibiotic prescriptions and consumption in the U.S. and India, highlighting women’s higher usage rates and exploring socioeconomic, healthcare, and regional factors influencing antibiotic use and knowledge.

Speaker

Dr Deepshikha Batheja, One Health Trust, India

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