Project Snapshot

Treatment Optimization Pillar

Antimicrobial Resistance and the Law

Principal Investigator: Lorian Hardcastle, LLM/SJD, JD

Project Theme: Policy, Economics & Sustainability

The Aim

The focus of this project is to identify regulatory strategies that may help to address AMR and to identify existing regulations that are a barrier to efforts to address AMR.

Why is This Important?

Regulations can complement other strategies to address AMR and, through their enforcement, can compel the adoption of practices that would reduce AMR.

Outcomes

  1. The legal literature on AMR is almost non-existent; this project would help to fill this gap.
  2. To generate recommendations for policy-makers on using regulatory strategies to address AMR

Research Questions

  1. What regulatory strategies might Canada/Alberta employ to help address the issue of AMR?
  2. What existing laws could be amended to help address the issue of AMR?

Our Approach

Researchers will conduct a review of Canadian and international primary and secondary legal literature for regulations associated with AMR or regulatory opportunities to address AMR.  Researchers will also review health policy literature, grey literature, and governmental documents for regulatory opportunities to address AMR.

Researchers will assess the feasibility of those regulatory strategies for the Canadian/Alberta context and explore how they may be adapted to fit that context.

Leveraged Sources of Support   

  • Infrastructure and internal funding opportunities at the Faculty of Law have been/will be used to fund research assistance and support knowledge translation activities

Knowledge & Technology Exchange and Exploitation   

  • Researchers will generate a report outlining the potental regulatory responses to AMR and present research findings to policy-makers.

Highly Qualified Personnel   

  • 2 Research Assistants
  • Future trainees will include a Masters Student and a Post-doctoral Fellow