October 2024 - Alali and Scheuerman publish study on antibiotic resistance in Sinking Creek Watershed

Walid Alali, Associate Professor of Epidemiology and Phil Scheuerman, Professor of Environmental Health in the East Tennessee State University College of Public Health, along with Andrew Joyner. Associate Professor of Geoinformatics & Disaster Science, have published a study on antibiotic resistance in Sinking Creek.  The article, "Prevalence of Antimicrobial Resistant Escherichia coli from Sinking Creek in Northeast Tennessee," has been published in the International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health.

Antibiotic resistance is not only a global health threat but also a concern for the health of animals and the environment. The development and spread of drug-resistant bacteria involve numerous contributing factors related to human medicine, animal agriculture, wildlife, food production, and sources of water. The study, conducted on Sinking Creek with the help of several graduate and undergraduate students, revealed that a significant percentage (47.5%) of E. coli isolates from water samples collected from the watershed were resistant to multiple antibiotics, including ceftriaxone, ciprofloxacin, and nitrofurantoin—drugs commonly used in human medicine to treat infections.

Sinking Creek flows through Jacob’s Nature Park (Johnson City, TN) and residential areas in two counties (Carter and Washington) before discharging into the Watauga River. Ten miles of the creek's stream do not meet the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) standards for E. coli. The land use within the Sinking Creek watershed, which includes a mixture of agricultural and urban areas, may be contributing to the presence of antibiotic-resistant E. coli in the water.