Antimicrobial resistance is often described as a crisis of antibiotic misuse. That description is accurate but increasingly incomplete.

A growing body of research suggests that the climate is also influencing how resistant bacteria develop, survive, and travel. Higher temperatures can encourage bacteria to grow and exchange genes, and floods and heavy rains can disperse resistant organisms across farms, sewage systems, rivers, food supplies, and communities.

This changes the way we need to think about antimicrobial resistance, or AMR, as it is commonly known. We can’t just look at prescriptions or hospitals or livestock production anymore in isolation. Climate conditions, animal health, environmental contamination, sanitation, and food safety are all part of the same system.

An editorial in the journal Animal Diseases on 29 June 2026 advocated an integrated One Health approach to climate change and AMR. One Health acknowledges that human health is inextricably linked to the health of animals and the environment they live in.

The argument is particularly relevant to Salmonella, a pathogen capable of circulating among livestock, food products, wastewater, natural waterways, retail environments, and people. Because it moves across so many boundaries, Salmonella can reveal how resistance emerging in one part of the system may spread into another.

A Global Study of Salmonella Resistance

The warning is supported by a large international analysis of 488,232 Salmonella genomes collected from 139 countries and regions between 1940 and 2023.

Researchers reported that the average global abundance of antimicrobial resistance genes in Salmonella increased by 38 percent during the period studied. Climate change was associated with a further 10…