Seeking to strengthen research on antimicrobial resistance (AMR) worldwide, the GRAM Project has joined with the Infectious Diseases Data Observatory (IDDO) to create an Oxford-based repository for AMR data, with the first curated dataset now available.
The repository, hosted by IDDO, will hold datasets used by the GRAM team to estimate the global burden of AMR. It will also allow external researchers to use the data if they receive permission from data contributors.
GRAM, a partnership between Oxford and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), began working with IDDO in 2022 to curate data for AMR-related analyses. The two groups are launching the repository to streamline GRAM’s practices, and to make AMR data available to a wider network of researchers, including those in low- and middle-income countries—where resistance data is scarce and often difficult to obtain.
The repository builds on IDDO’s strength as a data re-use specialist. The multi-disciplinary team currently maintains repositories of data on malaria, COVID-19, and other pathogens.
‘We are very pleased to announce this collaboration with IDDO’, said Profs Ben Cooper and Christiane Dolecek, GRAM’s PI and Co-PI. ‘Collecting and retaining data on AMR is a complex undertaking. The repository will improve our processes, while also widening access to data’.
IDDO welcomed the opportunity to expand its current work in AMR.
IDDO’s Director, Prof Philippe Guérin said: “We are excited to announce this collaboration. Although the initial data set is small, making these data available marks an important milestone in this project. IDDO’s Data Managers are now working to curate more data and updates to the IDDO ARM data platform will be available on a regular basis.”
GRAM is supported by the Fleming Fund, Wellcome Trust, and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The group provides regular estimates of AMR burden for IHME’s ongoing Global Burden of Disease study.
In recent years, numerous funders have encouraged researchers to make data more widely available, in order to advance scientific research, but also to promote equity and fairness.
Data in the repository could allow researchers to analyse AMR levels in their countries, or to perform a variety of secondary analyses.
Use of data in the repository will require permission from the original data contributor, either upon its initial arrival at IDDO, or on a case-by-case basis.
To learn more about data in the repository, visit the IDDO website.
Following the arrival of the first curated dataset, the GRAM-IDDO collaboration aims to make others available, including data contributed previously to GRAM, as well as newly arriving data.
More information about how to contribute data is available on IDDO’s webpages.
Global health leaders created GRAM in 2017 to address the rising threat of antimicrobial resistance. In 2022, a landmark GRAM study found that AMR directly caused at least 1.27 million attributable deaths.
More information about GRAM is available on the team’s web pages.
