Huge differences in antibiotic use in Canadian provinces

This graph depicts total outpatient antibiotic use in Canadian provinces expressed in DDD/1000 inhabitant-days. The information was obtained by the Canadian Integrated Program for Antibiotic Resistance Surveillance (CIPARS) from IMS Health Canada. CIPARS utilized the World Health Organization's Anatomical Therapeutic Chemical Classification and Defined Daily Dose methodology.

There are extremely large differences between provinces. Newfoundland and Labrador has, by far, the highest overall rate of consumption at approximately 30 DDD/1000 inhabitant-days. This corresponds to about 1.2 prescriptions per person per year. At this rate an average individual my age would have consumed 60 courses of antibiotic (you can figure out my age!). 60 separate serious bacterial infections!

Surely there can't be that many serious bacterial infections in Newfoundland and less than half as many in Quebec.

It is time to start sorting this out.