Antimicrobial stewardship is a multisectorial field dedicated to coordinating responses to threats posed by antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the topic of the May 2024 theme issue. This issue considers the field’s membership, organization, methods, ethical foundations, and future. Overall, responding to AMR well demands prioritizing stewardship as an ethical value that guides domestic and international agencies’ and programs’ efforts to preserve antimicrobial capacity, efficacy, and effectiveness. Measures of clinicians’ and organizations’ prescription practices and patients’ uses of antibiotic, antiparasitic, antiviral, and antifungal agents are empirical cornerstones of antimicrobial stewardship. Formulating, implementing, and evaluating stewardship improvement recommendations are also key from ethical, anthropological, social, and organizational perspectives.
