Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology - Commentary - Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America Position Statement

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Jasmine

Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America (SHEA) Board position statement links climate change to critical healthcare epidemiology concerns including healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance, and spread of Candida auris. It outlines health impacts of greenhouse-gas–driven warming and extreme weather, emphasizing that stewardship can reduce antibiotic use, plastic waste, energy consumption, and improve patient outcomes. The statement recommends scaling proven interventions and tracking cost and carbon-emission reductions as measures of program success.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryHealthcare

FormatPDF

Pages3

Reading Time8 min

AccessFree to download

Commentary

Linking climate change to healthcare epidemiology

Antibiotic and diagnostic stewardship

Corresponding author and citation details

Table 1

Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology (2026), 6, e10, 1–3 doi:10.1017/ash.2025.10262 Commentary Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America supports environmental stewardship and sustainability while protecting patients and healthcare personnel position statement of the SHEA Board David J. Weber MD, MPH1, *, Priya Nori MD2, * , Rajalakshmi Ananthanarayanan DNB3 , Carolee Estelle MD4, Jesse T. Jacob MD5 , Jennie H. Kwon DO, MSCI6, Lisa L. Maragakis MD7, Rekha Murthy MD8 , Ann-Christine Nyquist MD, MSPH9 , Catherine Passaretti MD10 , Lisa Saiman MD, MPH11, Erica S. Shenoy MD, PhD12, Julia E. Szymczak PhD13 and Thomas R. Talbot MD, MPH14 1University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Chapel Hill, NC, USA, 2Montefiore Health System, Albert Einstein College of Medicine, Bronx, NY, USA, 3KIMSHEALTH, Kerala, India, 4University of Texas Southwestern & Parkland Health, Dallas, TX, USA, 5Emory University, Atlanta, GA, USA, 6Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, IL, USA, 7Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, MD, USA, 8Cedars-Sinai Hospital, Los Angeles, CA, USA, 9Children’s Hospital Colorado, University of Colorado Medicine, Aurora, CO, USA, 10Advocate Health, Charlotte, NC, USA, 11Columbia University Irving Medical Center, NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital, New York, NY, USA, 12Mass General Brigham, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA, 13University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA and 14Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, USA The leading cause of climate change and global warming is the increase in greenhouse gas emissions.1 The health impacts of climate change and extreme weather events include temperatureassociated illnesses and deaths, air pollution-associated chronic respiratory illness, water-and foodborne infections, and vectorborne and zoonotic infections.2 There is a clear link between climate change and SHEA’s missioncritical concerns, such as healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and the spread of Candidozyma auris within healthcare settings.3 Moreover, climate change increases the frequency and severity of bacterial, fungal, and vector-borne diseases including gastroenteritis, skin and soft tissue infections, and respiratory illnesses.4 Broader infectious disease and public health threats resulting from climate change include the northward spread of Vibrio vulnificus along the Atlantic coastline and a global expansion of mosquito vectors with local transmission of malaria and dengue.5,6 Therefore, as healthcare epidemiologists, infection preventionists and antibiotic stewards concerned with public health and providing safe healthcare to all, it is incumbent on us to reduce the driving factors of climate change within our domains and mitigate adverse health impacts. Antibiotic and diagnostic stewardship There is a clear synergy between climate change, AMR, and their magnified impacts on the world’s most vulnerable populations.7 Corresponding author: Priya Nori; Email: [pnori@montefiore.org](pnori@montefiore.org) *Co-first authorship. Cite this article: Weber DJ, Nori P, Ananthanarayanan R, et al. Society for Healthcare Epidemiology of America supports environmental stewardship and sustainability while protecting patients and healthcare personnel position statement of the SHEA Board. Antimicrob Steward Healthc Epidemiol 2026. doi: 10.1017/ash.2025.10262 Achieving target reductions for global warming and AMR are interlinked goals of the United Nations global agenda. Antimicrobial stewardship (AS) is an extension of frontline patient care and directly affects individual and population-level outcomes. Interventions to reduce excess antibiotic days of therapy, including shorter antibiotic courses, earlier de-escalation of broadspectrum agents or intravenous (IV) to oral (PO) switch, can reduce plastic waste associated with IV administrations an

FAQs

How does climate change relate to SHEA’s mission-critical healthcare concerns?

The statement describes a clear link between climate change and SHEA concerns such as healthcare-associated infections, antimicrobial resistance, and spread of Candida auris in healthcare settings.

What stewardship interventions can reduce environmental harm while supporting patient outcomes?

It recommends de-escalation/cessation, switching IV to oral when appropriate, and diagnostic stewardship to avoid unnecessary testing or to use reflexive testing.

How can stewardship programs measure sustainability success?

Programs should track cost associated with excess antimicrobial use and can also track carbon emission reductions, including emissions tied to disposable waste and antimicrobial packaging, preparation, and administration.

Sep 29, 2026

Uploaded by Jasmine