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Sampling Design Considerations for the NARMS Surface Water Pilot
Citation:
Bagley, M. Sampling Design Considerations for the NARMS Surface Water Pilot. 2022 Public Meeting of the National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System, Cincinnati, OH, September 21, 2022.
Impact/Purpose:
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) has been described as the next big pandemic that humanity may have to overcome. The National Antimicrobial Resistance System (NARMS), which is administered by multiple federal agencies, seeks to monitor status and trends in AMR but has so far lacked an environmental component in the program. An understanding of AMR in the environment is necessary in order to take a "One Health" approach to AMR. EPA/ORD and EPA/OW are collaborating with FDA, CDC, and USDA to assess the distribution and trends in AMR in US surface waters. This presentation described the design of a pilot project to assess AMR in surface waters, leveraging two existing EPA monitoring projects.
Description:
The National Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring System (NARMS) is a collaboration of the U.S. federal agencies CDC, USDA,FDA and state and local health departments and tracks resistance in enteric bacteria from humans, retail meats, and food-producing animals at slaughter. Review of the program indicated that a "One Health" monitoring model would be more informative, necessitating the addition of an environmental monitoring component. However, trade-offs in terms of the scale and intensity of monitoring relative to NARMS goals must be considered. Surface water integrates environmental components and is a major focus of EPA's existing monitoring programs. This talk describes a multi-phased, multi-scale approach to environmental monitoring of antimicrobial resistance that was developed through a cross-agency collaboration.
