Practitioners in the health sector have been concerned about antibiotic resistance (ABR) for many years.
The IFoA's ABR Working Party, set up in early 2017, was born out of the idea that although some modelling had been done on this topic in the past, the models were not readily usable. Many actuaries wanted to be able to explore plausible scenarios and quantify the impacts across various product types.
The working party was comprised of a range of participants largely from insurers (and one reinsurer). Nicola Oliver, a medical research consultant, also came on board as deputy chair and provided vital medical insights during the course of the project. The findings have now been published, and chair Matthew Edwards explains that the results are quite surprising - read about them at bit.ly/33ewP1i
The working party, as it is, has concluded, but suggests that more work remains to be done on second-order impacts relating to the preventative use of antibiotics.
