Analysis of more than two decades’ worth of data from 70 countries indicates that gender inequalities influence antibiotic consumption patterns, researchers reported yesterday in the Journal of Antimicrobial Chemotherapy.
For the study, a team led by researchers from the One Health Trust analyzed IQVIA MIDAS data on yearly antibiotic consumption from 70 countries from 2000 through 2002. To assess the influence of gender inequalities, they used four indicators—proportion of women with secondary or higher education, female-to-male labor force participation (FMLP) ratio, proportion of women in parliament, and share of female population—and estimated within-country associations between these indicators and overall antibiotic consumption, controlling for income, education, health care…