Trends, relationships and case attribution of antibiotic resistance between children and environmental sources in rural India

Bacterial antibiotic resistance is an important global health threat and the interfaces of antibiotic resistance between humans, animals and the environment are complex. We aimed to determine the associations and overtime trends of antibiotic resistance between humans, animals and water sources from the same area and time and estimate attribution of the other sources to cases of human antibiotic resistance. A total of 125 children (aged 1–3 years old) had stool samples analysed for antibiotic-resistant bacteria at seven time points over two years, with simultaneous collection of samples of animal stools and water sources in a rural Indian community. Newey–West regression models were used to calculate temporal associations, the source with the most statistically significant relationships was household drinking water. This is supported by use of SourceR attribution modelling, that estimated the mean attribution of cases of antibiotic resistance in the children from animals, household drinking water and wastewater, at each time point and location, to be 12.6% (95% CI 4.4–20.9%), 12.1% (CI 3.4–20.7%) and 10.3% (CI 3.2–17.3%) respectively. This underlines the importance of the ‘one health’ concept and requires further research. Also, most of the significant trends over time were negative, suggesting a possible generalised improvement locally.