Scottish One Health Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Resistance in 2022

A 'One Health' approach to tackling AMR acknowledges that the health of humans, animals and the environment are interconnected. Antimicrobial use and spread of micro-organisms in humans, animals and the environment contribute to the development of resistant infections.

The COVID-19 pandemic impacted healthcare delivery in both hospital and community settings. Priorities were adjusted to respond to the pandemic, leading to changes to delivery of services and to the patient population, including a new cohort of patients being treated for COVID-19. This makes comparisons with previous years difficult, therefore results presented in this report must be interpreted in the context of the pandemic and with due caution.

The Scottish One Health Antimicrobial Use and Antimicrobial Resistance (SONAAR) Health Protection programme contributes to ARHAI Scotland’s mission to improve the health and wellbeing of the population by reducing the burden of infection and AMR. This is delivered through development of epidemiological evidence on trends in antibiotic use and resistance to inform local and national interventions and initiatives in human and animal health. In line with the One Health approach, this report includes information from 2022 on antimicrobial use and resistance in humans, animals and the environment.