Flu Season and Antibiotic Overprescription

By: Gelband H
Publisher: Resources for the Future
Published: 10/1/2009

The flu season presents two golden opportunities to save antibiotics while improving the health and health care of individuals by increasing the proportion of people vaccinated, and reducing unnecessary and ineffective antibiotic prescribing.

Are one or both of these aims achievable in the United States today? Contemporary successes in the province of Ontario, Canada through increased influenza vaccination and in France through reduced antibiotic prescribing suggest that the answer is yes—both.

This policy brief from RWJF grantee Extending the Cure offers two case studies that detail how these interventions have better served patients.

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