Advanced Evaluation of Antimicrobial Resistance Control Programmes Training Course

Course Introduction

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a major global health and development challenge that threatens the effectiveness of medicines used to prevent and treat bacterial, viral, fungal, and parasitic infections. Evaluating antimicrobial resistance control programmes requires advanced analytical methods for determining whether interventions are reducing inappropriate antimicrobial use, strengthening infection prevention, improving surveillance, and protecting the effectiveness of essential medicines. The Advanced Evaluation of Antimicrobial Resistance Control Programmes Training Course provides participants with practical frameworks for assessing programme relevance, implementation performance, effectiveness, efficiency, equity, sustainability, and population-level impact across human health, animal health, agriculture, and environmental systems.

AMR control programmes commonly combine antimicrobial stewardship, laboratory strengthening, infection prevention and control, surveillance, public awareness, regulatory enforcement, research, and improvements in medicine access. These interventions operate across multiple institutions and sectors, making evaluation particularly complex. Participants will examine how to develop comprehensive evaluation frameworks that reflect programme objectives, implementation arrangements, national action plans, sector-specific priorities, and international AMR commitments. The course emphasizes the importance of establishing clear theories of change, measurable indicators, credible baselines, and realistic assumptions that connect programme activities with changes in antimicrobial consumption, prescribing practices, infection rates, resistance patterns, and health outcomes.

Reliable AMR programme evaluation depends on the availability, quality, and comparability of data from multiple sources. These may include microbiology laboratories, antimicrobial consumption records, pharmacy systems, hospital information platforms, veterinary surveillance networks, community surveys, prescribing audits, and environmental monitoring programmes. Participants will explore advanced methods for assessing surveillance completeness, laboratory quality, data validity, reporting consistency, and representativeness. They will learn how to address missing data, inconsistent laboratory methods, changes in testing practices, weak denominators, and limited routine reporting capacity. The course also examines how improved data governance, standardized definitions, interoperable information systems, and responsible data sharing can strengthen the reliability of evaluation findings.

Demonstrating whether an AMR control intervention has caused meaningful change requires more than comparing indicators before and after implementation. Resistance patterns can be influenced by infection prevention practices, medicine availability, prescribing behavior, patient characteristics, laboratory coverage, population movement, and changes in surveillance intensity. Participants will examine evaluation designs such as interrupted time-series analysis, controlled before-and-after studies, difference-in-differences approaches, cohort studies, mixed-methods evaluations, and realist evaluation. They will learn how to select methods according to programme maturity, data availability, ethical considerations, and operational constraints. Particular attention will be given to distinguishing intervention effects from background trends, assessing implementation fidelity, interpreting uncertainty, and avoiding unsupported causal conclusions.

The course also addresses the economic, behavioral, institutional, and equity dimensions of AMR control. Effective interventions must consider the incentives influencing prescribing, dispensing, medicine purchasing, diagnostic testing, infection prevention, and antimicrobial use in livestock and food production. Participants will evaluate how regulatory measures, stewardship programmes, diagnostic improvements, professional training, community engagement, and public-private partnerships influence behavior and service delivery. They will also assess programme costs, resource requirements, distributional effects, and sustainability, including whether interventions are accessible to rural communities, lower-income populations, small-scale farmers, and facilities with limited laboratory capacity. Emerging issues such as climate-related risks, environmental contamination, genomic surveillance, artificial intelligence, and new antimicrobial development will be considered within a broader One Health evaluation framework.

By completing the Advanced Evaluation of Antimicrobial Resistance Control Programmes Training Course, participants will be equipped to design and manage rigorous evaluations, interpret complex AMR data, assess programme implementation, and translate findings into practical policy and operational recommendations. They will strengthen their ability to evaluate national action plans, hospital stewardship initiatives, surveillance systems, infection prevention programmes, veterinary antimicrobial controls, and cross-sector coordination mechanisms. Through applied exercises, case studies, and an integrated evaluation project, participants will develop skills for producing credible evidence that supports resource allocation, accountability, programme adaptation, and sustainable progress in combating antimicrobial resistance.

Duration

10 days

Who Should Attend

• Public health professionals responsible for evaluating national antimicrobial resistance strategies, infectious disease programmes, and public health interventions.

• Epidemiologists and surveillance specialists assessing antimicrobial resistance trends, infection patterns, antimicrobial consumption, and programme performance.

• Clinical microbiologists and laboratory managers responsible for evaluating diagnostic quality, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, laboratory networks, and resistance surveillance.

• Antimicrobial stewardship coordinators and clinical pharmacists assessing prescribing practices, antimicrobial utilization, guideline adherence, and medicine-use interventions.

• Ministry of health officials and national AMR focal persons coordinating action plans, monitoring frameworks, interagency collaboration, and national programme reviews.

• Veterinary professionals and animal health specialists evaluating antimicrobial use, disease prevention, surveillance, and stewardship in livestock and animal production.

• Environmental health professionals assessing antimicrobial residues, pharmaceutical waste, wastewater management, and environmental dimensions of AMR transmission.

• Monitoring and evaluation specialists developing evaluation questions, theories of change, performance indicators, data collection strategies, and evaluation reports.

• Health economists and health financing professionals assessing programme costs, cost-effectiveness, resource allocation, affordability, and economic sustainability.

• Hospital administrators, infection prevention specialists, and quality improvement professionals evaluating infection prevention and control programmes and hospital-based AMR interventions.

• Researchers and academic professionals conducting operational research, implementation science, impact evaluations, and multidisciplinary AMR studies.

• Development partners, donor programme officers, and technical advisers overseeing investments in AMR surveillance, stewardship, laboratory strengthening, and One Health initiatives.

• Policy analysts and regulatory professionals evaluating antimicrobial medicine regulations, prescription controls, pharmaceutical distribution, and enforcement mechanisms.

• Data analysts and health information specialists working with surveillance databases, laboratory information systems, antimicrobial consumption datasets, and digital monitoring platforms.

• Professionals working with international health agencies, universities, research institutions, nongovernmental organizations, and One Health partnerships seeking advanced AMR evaluation skills.

Course Objectives

• Develop an advanced understanding of antimicrobial resistance control programmes, their public health significance, and the evaluation principles required to assess their performance across human, animal, and environmental health.

• Design comprehensive evaluation frameworks aligned with national AMR action plans, programme objectives, One Health priorities, and relevant international monitoring commitments.

• Develop theories of change and results frameworks that connect programme resources and activities with outputs, behavioral changes, antimicrobial utilization, resistance trends, and health outcomes.

• Select appropriate quantitative, qualitative, and mixed-methods evaluation designs based on programme objectives, implementation maturity, available data, ethical considerations, and operational constraints.

• Assess the quality, completeness, validity, representativeness, and comparability of AMR surveillance data collected through laboratories, healthcare facilities, veterinary systems, and environmental monitoring networks.

• Evaluate antimicrobial stewardship interventions by measuring prescribing quality, antimicrobial consumption, guideline adherence, diagnostic utilization, and changes in professional and institutional practices.

• Apply advanced epidemiological and statistical methods to assess trends in antimicrobial resistance, compare intervention and comparison groups, and interpret changes while accounting for potential confounding factors.

• Evaluate infection prevention and control interventions by examining healthcare-associated infections, adherence to preventive practices, implementation fidelity, and relationships with resistance-related outcomes.

• Assess the performance of veterinary and agricultural antimicrobial control measures, including prescription practices, medicine distribution, antimicrobial use monitoring, and responsible use initiatives.

• Conduct economic and equity analyses to assess programme costs, resource efficiency, access to interventions, distributional effects, and the sustainability of AMR control investments.

• Integrate qualitative research, stakeholder analysis, implementation science, and behavioral assessment to explain how institutional, professional, community, and regulatory factors influence programme results.

• Translate evaluation evidence into actionable recommendations, policy briefs, performance dashboards, and improvement plans that strengthen accountability, programme adaptation, and long-term AMR control.

Comprehensive Course Outline

Module 1: Foundations of Antimicrobial Resistance Control and Programme Evaluation

• Examine the biological, clinical, epidemiological, and socioeconomic dimensions of antimicrobial resistance and its implications for health systems, food security, and development.

• Review the main components of AMR control programmes, including stewardship, infection prevention, laboratory capacity, surveillance, regulation, research, and public awareness.

• Distinguish programme monitoring, process evaluation, outcome evaluation, impact evaluation, implementation research, and economic evaluation within AMR control initiatives.

• Examine national AMR action plans, One Health coordination arrangements, and relevant international frameworks to establish appropriate evaluation scope and standards.

Module 2: AMR Programme Theory of Change and Results Frameworks

• Develop theories of change that explain how programme activities are expected to influence antimicrobial use, infection prevention, resistance patterns, and population health outcomes.

• Construct logical frameworks linking inputs, activities, outputs, short-term outcomes, intermediate outcomes, and long-term impacts across relevant sectors.

• Identify assumptions, external influences, causal pathways, implementation dependencies, and contextual factors that may affect the achievement of AMR programme objectives.

• Establish evaluation questions and performance indicators that reflect programme priorities, stakeholder information needs, and the intended use of evaluation findings.

Module 3: Evaluation Design and Methodological Selection

• Compare experimental, quasi-experimental, observational, qualitative, and mixed-methods designs for evaluating antimicrobial resistance control interventions.

• Assess the suitability of randomized approaches, controlled before-and-after studies, interrupted time-series analysis, and difference-in-differences methods for different programme settings.

• Develop sampling strategies, comparison group criteria, observation periods, data collection plans, and evaluation protocols that support credible conclusions.

• Address threats to validity, including selection bias, confounding, secular trends, measurement changes, implementation differences, and limitations in attributing outcomes to interventions.

Module 4: AMR Surveillance Systems and Data Quality Evaluation

• Evaluate surveillance system objectives, population coverage, participating facilities, laboratory participation, reporting completeness, timeliness, and geographic representativeness.

• Assess the quality of microbiology data, specimen collection practices, organism identification, antimicrobial susceptibility testing, and laboratory quality assurance.

• Examine data integration across laboratory information systems, hospital records, pharmacy systems, public health databases, and veterinary surveillance platforms.

• Develop data quality assessment procedures for identifying missing observations, duplicate records, inconsistent definitions, reporting delays, and changes in testing coverage.

Module 5: Epidemiological Analysis of Antimicrobial Resistance Trends

• Analyze resistance patterns by pathogen, antimicrobial agent, infection type, patient characteristics, facility, geographic area, and relevant surveillance period.

• Apply descriptive epidemiology, stratified analysis, trend assessment, and suitable statistical models to examine changes in resistance indicators over time.

• Assess how testing intensity, case mix, specimen selection, healthcare exposure, referral patterns, and laboratory participation may influence observed resistance trends.

• Interpret epidemiological findings using appropriate uncertainty measures and communicate limitations without overstating causal relationships or population-level representativeness.

Module 6: Antimicrobial Stewardship Programme Evaluation

• Evaluate hospital and community stewardship interventions involving prescribing guidelines, antimicrobial review, formulary management, audit and feedback, and treatment optimization.

• Measure antimicrobial utilization using appropriate indicators, including defined daily doses, days of therapy, prescribing rates, and consumption measures suited to the setting.

• Assess prescribing appropriateness, guideline compliance, de-escalation practices, diagnostic stewardship, treatment duration, and access to effective antimicrobial therapy.

• Examine how staffing, clinical leadership, diagnostic capacity, medicine availability, prescriber behavior, and institutional incentives influence stewardship implementation and outcomes.

Module 7: Infection Prevention and Control Evaluation

• Evaluate infection prevention and control programmes through assessment of policies, implementation fidelity, staff practices, hand hygiene, environmental cleaning, and relevant clinical procedures.

• Analyze healthcare-associated infection indicators and examine their relationships with antimicrobial resistance, patient outcomes, and facility-level prevention practices.

• Assess surveillance definitions, denominator quality, case ascertainment, reporting completeness, and comparability when evaluating infection prevention outcomes.

• Examine the contribution of staffing levels, infrastructure, water and sanitation, isolation capacity, training, and management support to programme performance.

Module 8: Laboratory Strengthening and Diagnostic Stewardship Evaluation

• Assess laboratory infrastructure, workforce capacity, diagnostic turnaround time, specimen handling, quality assurance, equipment reliability, and access to essential reagents.

• Evaluate diagnostic stewardship interventions designed to improve test ordering, specimen quality, interpretation of results, and clinical use of microbiology findings.

• Measure how diagnostic improvements influence antimicrobial initiation, treatment adjustment, unnecessary prescribing, patient management, and surveillance reliability.

• Examine external quality assessment, laboratory accreditation, referral networks, digital connectivity, and sustainable financing as indicators of laboratory system performance.

Module 9: Veterinary, Agricultural, and Food-System AMR Evaluation

• Evaluate programmes addressing antimicrobial use in livestock, aquaculture, companion animals, and food production, including relevant regulatory and stewardship interventions.

• Assess veterinary prescribing practices, access to animal health services, antimicrobial distribution channels, farm-level records, and responsible medicine-use practices.

• Examine surveillance approaches for antimicrobial use and resistance in animals and food systems, considering sampling methods, production settings, and data comparability.

• Analyze the influence of husbandry practices, vaccination, biosecurity, animal disease burden, farmer incentives, and veterinary service availability on programme outcomes.

Module 10: Environmental AMR Risks and One Health Evaluation

• Examine environmental pathways associated with antimicrobial residues, resistant organisms, wastewater discharge, pharmaceutical manufacturing, healthcare waste, and agricultural runoff.

• Evaluate interventions involving wastewater treatment, effluent management, pharmaceutical waste control, sanitation improvements, and environmental monitoring.

• Assess the coordination of human health, animal health, food safety, agriculture, and environmental agencies within integrated One Health programmes.

• Develop cross-sector evaluation frameworks that identify shared indicators, data ownership arrangements, surveillance gaps, and opportunities for coordinated intervention assessment.

Module 11: Qualitative Evaluation and Implementation Science

• Design interviews, focus group discussions, observations, and document reviews to understand stakeholder experiences and implementation processes within AMR programmes.

• Apply thematic analysis, framework analysis, and realist evaluation principles to explain how context and intervention mechanisms influence programme outcomes.

• Investigate barriers and enablers affecting stewardship, surveillance participation, regulatory compliance, infection prevention, and intersectoral collaboration.

• Integrate qualitative findings with quantitative evidence to explain unexpected results, implementation variation, and differences in intervention effectiveness across settings.

Module 12: Behavioral, Regulatory, and Community-Level Evaluation

• Evaluate public awareness initiatives, professional education, community engagement, and behavior change interventions aimed at promoting responsible antimicrobial use.

• Assess prescription-only medicine policies, pharmacy dispensing practices, regulatory enforcement, medicine quality controls, and compliance with relevant national requirements.

• Examine the influence of patient expectations, self-medication, informal medicine markets, provider incentives, and access barriers on antimicrobial use.

• Apply behavioral and implementation frameworks to identify mechanisms that support sustainable changes in prescribing, dispensing, medicine purchasing, and public understanding.

Module 13: Economic Evaluation and Resource Efficiency

• Develop cost analysis frameworks covering programme design, staffing, laboratory services, diagnostics, training, surveillance, implementation, and ongoing operational requirements.

• Compare appropriate economic evaluation approaches, including cost-effectiveness, cost-consequence, and budget impact analysis, according to the decision context.

• Assess the relationship between programme costs, antimicrobial consumption, infection prevention outcomes, resistance indicators, and wider health system consequences.

• Conduct sensitivity analysis and examine financial sustainability, affordability, opportunity costs, and the resource implications of scaling effective AMR interventions.

Module 14: Equity, Ethics, and Governance in AMR Programme Evaluation

• Assess differences in access to diagnostics, appropriate antimicrobials, stewardship support, laboratory services, and infection prevention resources across population groups and facilities.

• Examine ethical considerations involving patient confidentiality, data protection, informed consent, equitable access to treatment, and responsible antimicrobial regulation.

• Evaluate programme governance, institutional accountability, interagency coordination, stakeholder participation, transparency, and mechanisms for acting on evaluation findings.

• Identify how rural access constraints, workforce shortages, socioeconomic disadvantage, gender-related barriers, and unequal infrastructure influence programme implementation and outcomes.

Module 15: Digital Innovation, Genomic Surveillance, and Emerging Evaluation Challenges

• Examine the use of genomic surveillance, advanced laboratory platforms, digital reporting systems, and interoperable data tools for strengthening AMR programme evaluation.

• Assess the potential of artificial intelligence and predictive analytics for surveillance prioritization, anomaly detection, risk forecasting, and programme performance analysis.

• Evaluate emerging interventions addressing new antimicrobial development, rapid diagnostics, vaccination, alternative therapies, and improved infection prevention technologies.

• Address cybersecurity, data governance, algorithmic bias, limited interoperability, technology costs, and workforce capacity when evaluating digital and genomic innovations.

Module 16: Integrated AMR Evaluation Practicum and Policy Translation

• Develop a comprehensive evaluation protocol for a national or institutional AMR control programme, including objectives, questions, methods, indicators, sampling, and governance.

• Analyze a simulated dataset combining antimicrobial consumption, laboratory surveillance, prescribing practices, infection prevention indicators, and implementation information.

• Prepare an evaluation report that presents findings, uncertainty, contextual explanations, limitations, conclusions, and prioritized recommendations for decision-makers.

• Develop a results communication and improvement plan linking evaluation findings to policy decisions, resource allocation, stakeholder responsibilities, programme adaptation, and future monitoring.

Training Approach

This course will be delivered by our skilled trainers who have vast knowledge and experience as expert professionals in the fields. The course is taught in English and through a mix of theory, practical activities, group discussion and case studies. Course manuals and additional training materials will be provided to the participants upon completion of the training.

Tailor-Made Course

This course can also be tailor-made to meet organization requirement. For further inquiries, please contact us on: Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com Tel: +254 721 331 808

Training Venue 

The training will be held at our Upskill Training Centre. We also offer training for a group (at a discount of 10% to 50%) at requested location all over the world. The Onsite course fee covers the course tuition, training materials, two break refreshments, buffet lunch, airport transfers, Upskill gift package, and guided tour.

Visa application, travel expenses, dinners, accommodation, insurance, and other personal expenses are catered by the participant

Certification

Participants will be issued with Upskill certificate upon completion of this course.

Airport Pickup and Accommodation

Airport pickup and accommodation is arranged upon request. For booking contact our Training Coordinator through Email: training@upskilldevelopment.com, +254 721 331 808

Terms of Payment:

Unless otherwise agreed between the two parties’ payment of the course fee should be done 3 working days before commencement of the training so as to enable us to prepare better.