TY - JOUR AU - Klein, Eili AU - Smith, David L. AU - Laxminarayan, Ramanan T1 - Community-associated Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus in Outpatients, United States, 1999–2006 T2 - Emerging Infectious Disease journal PY - 2009 VL - 15 IS - 12 SP - 1925 SN - 1080-6059 AB - Community-associated methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (CA-MRSA) has become a major problem in US hospitals already dealing with high levels of hospital-associated MRSA (HA-MRSA). Using antimicrobial drug susceptibility data for 1999–2006 from The Surveillance Network, we characterized the relationship between outpatient and inpatient levels of CA-MRSA nationally. In outpatients, the frequency of CA-MRSA isolates has increased >7× during 1999–2006, which suggests that outpatients have become a major reservoir for CA-MRSA. However, contrary to results in other reports, although CA-MRSA increases are associated with decreases in the frequency of HA-MRSA in hospitals, the decreases are only modest. This finding suggests that instead of replacing HA-MRSA in the hospital, CA-MRSA is adding to the overall presence of MRSA already found within the hospital population. KW - Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus KW - community-associated MRSA KW - hospital-associated MRSA KW - phenotypic susceptibility KW - outpatients KW - staphylococci KW - bacteria KW - CME KW - research KW - United States DO - 10.3201/eid1512.081341 UR - https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/15/12/08-1341_article ER - End of Reference