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Life sciences · Journal article
The Lancet Regional Health - Americas · August 22, 2026
A consensus or society position rather than new primary data.
This is a narrative position statement identifying diagnostic stewardship as central to combating antimicrobial resistance globally. It articulates the mechanism (empirical broad-spectrum prescribing in the absence of diagnostic guidance) and barriers (cost-effectiveness evidence gaps, laboratory capacity constraints) but presents no new empirical findings or quantitative outcomes.
Journal article. Global healthcare systems across all income settings; healthcare workers and patients with infectious disease..
Diagnostics are underused and undervalued in infectious disease management across all income settings. Lack of diagnostic access drives empirical broad-spectrum antibiotic prescribing and inappropriate antimicrobial use. Key barriers include limited cost-effectiveness evidence at patient and AMR population levels, and gaps in laboratory workforce, infrastructure, and resources.
Safety was not reported in the material analysed. Check the source before drawing any conclusion about harm.
Clinicians and policy-makers should recognise diagnostic testing as a strategic tool for antimicrobial stewardship, not merely a confirmatory step. Investment in diagnostic capacity and evidence generation is presented as necessary to reduce inappropriate antimicrobial use.
This is an expert perspective piece articulating clinical and public health principles about diagnostic stewardship and antimicrobial resistance, not reporting new empirical evidence.
Clinicians and policy-makers should recognise diagnostic testing as a strategic tool for antimicrobial stewardship, not merely a confirmatory step. Investment in diagnostic capacity and evidence generation is presented as necessary to reduce inappropriate antimicrobial use.
Graded across the dimensions that decide whether you should act, each from what the source actually supports. There is no single score, and where a dimension was not assessed it says so.
What is missing. This record has no reported figures. That is a gap in the analysis, not a judgement about the study.
Diagnostics can help us know if antimicrobials are needed and which specific antimicrobial might work best. Yet diagnostics are woefully underused and undervalued in the management of infectious disease, in all income settings. Without access to diagnostics, healthcare workers often rely on empirical prescribing of broad-spectrum antibiotics. This results in the inappropriate use of antibiotics, leading to the development of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). There are multiple reasons for this lack of prioritisation of diagnostics, including limited evidence of their cost-effectiveness both at the patient level and in the broader context of AMR and the lack of laboratory capacity in terms of workforce and infrastructure and resources.
Taken from the source record, never inferred. Follow any of these and new work involving them reaches your briefing.