Authors: Dearbháile Morris, Liam Burke, Sinéad Duane, Maeve Farrell, Alexandra Chueiri, Dmitry Brychkov, Anne Leonard, Francesca McDonagh, Louise O’Connor, Sabine Franklin, Christine Domegan, Áine McNamara, Regina Kiernan, Katharine Harkin, William Gaze, Easkey Britton, Diarmuid O’Donovan and Martin Cormican
Summary: With Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) recognised as one of the greatest challenges to human and animal health, it has major implications for our agriculture and food production systems, environment and economy. Using the One Health approach, which recognises the link between human, animal and environmental health, the PIER project focuses on furthering our understanding of the public health implications of environmental exposure to AMR and how this impacts the use of blue spaces, wellbeing and the quality of life. Using a multidisciplinary project team PIER gathered data on the relative risk of AMR colonisation following exposure in recreations waters, the persistence of AMR carriage in healthy individuals and created a stakeholder recreational water environment map to help identify feasible and impactful options to maximising use of our blue spaces. It highlights the need for guidelines on monitoring and reporting antimicrobial presence in bathing waters and year round monitoring.
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is recognised globally as one of the greatest challenges to human and animal health. It has major implications for our agriculture and food production systems, environment and economy. In 2021, Ireland’s second National Action Plan on AMR strengthened Ireland’s commitment to tackling the challenge of AMR using the One Health approach, which recognises the link between human, animal and environmental health. There are socio-economic, health and wellbeing benefits associated with access to clean water and blue spaces. Findings from the Public Health Impact of Exposure to Antibiotic Resistance in Recreational Waters (PIER) project help to bridge knowledge gaps on the public health implications of environmental exposure to antimicrobial-resistant organisms and how this impacts on use of blue/green spaces, wellbeing and quality of life.
The second National Action Plan acknowledges that there remains a growing need to enhance our understanding of the environmental dimension of AMR. This is necessary for the development and implementation of public health-related risk assessment and risk management strategies. The PIER project provides key evidence and recommendations to support the second National Action Plan and informs several different national and international policies1.
The PIER project adopted a One Health approach and brought together experts in microbiology, public health, epidemiology and social marketing. The PIER project has: (1) generated data on the relative risk of colonisation with antimicrobial-resistant bacteria following exposure to recreational waters, (2) revealed the persistence of carriage of antimicrobial-resistant bacteria by healthy individuals and (3) created a recreational water environment dynamic stakeholder map to enable analysis of the most feasible and impactful options to maximise use of our blue spaces.
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