Effects of regional diversity on antimicrobial prescribing in dogs and cats in North Carolina from 2019 to 2020.

BACKGROUND

Data on antimicrobial use (AMU) in companion animals is lacking in the United States, along with information regarding drivers of such prescribing.

OBJECTIVES

To describe trends in AMU for dogs and cats in North Carolina (NC) over geography, urbanicity, time, and patient sex from 1 January 2019 to 31 December 2020 and evaluate the influence of summarized measures of social vulnerability and the COVID-19 pandemic on prescribing practices.

METHODS

In cooperation with IDEXX Laboratories, Inc. (IDEXX), we collected prescribing data from dogs and cats treated at 389 practices during 2019 and 2020. Practices were stratified by geographic region (mountain, piedmont, coastal plain) and urbanization (rural, urban). Social vulnerability was measured using the CDC published Social Vulnerability Index (SVI) data and was summarized for each of the six areas. Poisson family models were used to estimate prescribing rates and rate ratios for independent variables, normalized by the total number of monthly patients.

RESULTS

Combination beta-lactam agents, fluoroquinolones, nitroimidazole, and cephalosporins were the most prescribed drug classes. Region and urbanicity only significantly affected prescribing rate for first-generation cephalosporins in dogs, and prescribing rates did not significantly change during the COVID-19 pandemic. Patient sex was the most consistently significant independent variable for prescribing rates.

CONCLUSIONS

The current study found that prescribing rates of the most common antimicrobials in dogs and cats were fairly uniform with some increased prescribing in rural and vulnerable areas of the state.