A new study is linking air pollution to the global amount of antibiotic resistance, when medicines used to treat bacterial infections become less effective.
Scientists found a connection between the two after analyzing data from over 116 countries over nearly two decades and shared their findings Monday in the journal The Lancet Planetary Health. In the model created by the researchers, air pollution was found to be responsible for 11% of changes in average antibiotic resistance levels globally, possibly making particle pollution a leading driver.
“Antibiotic resistance and air pollution are each in their own right among the greatest threats to global health,” wrote the study’s lead author Hong Chen.
However, the study, which examined nine bacterial pathogens and 43 types of antibiotics, is observational and can’t prove a connection or explain what the connection would be.
Not ‘if’ but ‘when’:Antibiotic resistance poses existential threat for modern medicine
Antibiotic resistance is considered to be one of the most harmful threats to global health as infections like pneumonia and tuberculosis are becoming harder to treat, the World Health Organization (WHO) states.
Chen and the other researchers created a model to view antibiotic resistance levels and air pollution levels called PM2.5. The researchers found that particle pollution rose with the levels of antibiotic resistance.
What is particle pollution and antibiotic resistance?
The US Environmental Protection Agency defines PM2.5, also called particle pollution or particulate matter pollution, as the combination of solid and liquid droplets found in the air. Coal, cars, unpaved roads, construction sites, natural gas-fired plants and wildfires can create particulate pollution. Dirt, dust, soot and smoke are forms of particulate pollution.
WHO defines antibiotic resistance, also called antimicrobial resistance or AMR, as what happens when a particular pathogen like a bacteria, fungi or parasite – is less affected…
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