Communicating antimicrobial resistance: the need to go beyond human health

Thornber, Kelly; Pitchforth, Emma

doi:10.1093/jacamr/dlab096

Cited by 5 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…These studies have aimed at identifying deficient issues, and thus generating valuable data for designing future health programs and preventive strategies accordingly. The communication of strategic information, especially the link between antibiotic misuse and AMR emergence, will prove crucial for optimizing such strategies [ 25 , 26 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Antibiotic Resistance Awareness among Undergraduate Students in Quito, Ecuador

et al. 2022

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The inappropriate use of antibiotics leads to antibiotic resistance, which reduces their efficacy. The education of undergraduates is likely to influence their practices. Assessing awareness is critical in the general effort to confront the spread of antibiotic resistance. This cross-sectional investigation was carried out using the questionnaire “Antibiotic resistance: Multi-country public awareness” developed by the World Health Organization. Students from different backgrounds at the Central University participated in the study (n = 733). The survey comprised five sections: demographics, knowledge, usage, sources of information, and attitudes. The rate of correct answers was 64.88%; differences were detected between programs of study (p < 0.001); effect size analysis showed that these differences cannot be considered large. Individuals from applied sciences scored higher than their counterparts from social studies. Mostly, interviewees were knowledgeable about usage, but mistakenly associated antibiotics with conditions such as cold/flu or viral illnesses; also, they associated antibiotic resistance with the patient and not with bacteria. Despite these misconceptions, positive attitudes were registered overall, and students generally adhered to common practices. They cited doctors/nurses and teachers as sources of information. As a consequence, it is recommended to develop courses that address deficient knowledge regarding antibiotic resistance, especially for individuals affiliated to social disciplines.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Antibiotic Resistance Awareness among Undergraduate Students in Quito, Ecuador

et al. 2022

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“…Furthermore, going beyond human health is not only a conceptual matter, but also a key strategic element with the objective of achieving multisectoral involvement in AMR initiatives. For example, communication and awareness campaigns have thus far focused disproportionately on individual prescription for humans and patient use, but campaigns that go beyond human health have the potential to involve a much wider sector of society in addressing the issue of AMR (Thornber and Pitchforth 2021).…”

Section: Anthropocentrism In One Health and Amr Ethicsmentioning

confidence: 99%

In critique of anthropocentrism: a more-than-human ethical framework for antimicrobial resistance

2022

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Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is often framed as a One Health issue, premised on the interdependence between human, animal and environmental health. Despite this framing, the focus across policymaking, implementation and the ethics of AMR remains anthropocentric in practice, with human health taking priority over the health of non-human animals and the environment, both of which mostly appear as secondary elements to be adjusted to minimise impact on human populations. This perpetuates cross-sectoral asymmetries whereby human health institutions have access to bigger budgets and technical support, limiting the ability of agricultural, animal health or environmental institutions to effectively implement policy initiatives. In this article, we review these asymmetries from an ethical perspective. Through a review and analysis of contemporary literature on the ethics of AMR, we demonstrate how the ethical challenges and tensions raised still emerge from an anthropocentric framing, and argue that such literature fails to address the problematic health hierarchies that underlie policies and ethics of AMR. As a consequence, they fail to provide the necessary tools to ethically evaluate the more-than-human challenges that the long list of actors involved in managing AMR face in their everyday practices. In response to such shortcomings, and to make sense of these challenges and tensions, this article develops an ethical framework based on relationality, care ethics and ambivalence that attends to the more-than-human character of AMR. We formulate this approach without overlooking everyday challenges of implementation by putting the framework in conversation with concrete situations from precarious settings in West Africa. This article concludes by arguing that a useful AMR ethics framework needs to consider and take seriously non-human others as an integral part of both health and disease in any given ecology.

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“…Meanwhile, Lu et al (2020) used a co-citation analysis to improve the understanding of how AMR social science dissemination is dispersed across relevant areas of expertise, including medical, microbial, social science, and environmental health journals [ 27 ]. These efforts to explicate critical research gaps combine with a general rising call for greater international investment in AMR behavioral and social science research [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. To this call, our analysis highlights how ELSI research helps refine health policy and ethical research priorities.…”

Section: Amr Is Distinct: Toward An Elsi Of Precision Antimicrobial S...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…From an ELSI perspective, ASP teams also generate a set of questions that engage with role morality, or the enculturation process that orients professionals to distinct values [ 147 ], and their interprofessional interactions [ 148 ]. Moreover, One Health policy questions will challenge team science to bridge agricultural and health settings—with some lessons to be drawn from related but distinct non-human ELSI research, such as genetically modified plants or mosquitos [ 9 , 149 ]. In this space, there is great potential for innovation in both team science research design and community engagement [ 150 , 151 , 152 ].…”

Section: Amr Is Distinct: Toward An Elsi Of Precision Antimicrobial S...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…An emerging consensus states that AMR is best understood as a microbial and social problem. The result has been ongoing calls for increased investment in AMR social science, both within the United States (U.S.) and globally [ 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 ]. To these important calls, we highlight how the rise of AMR is increasingly depicted in moral terms [ 11 , 12 , 13 , 14 , 15 ].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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The New Precision Stewards?

Meagher

Watson

Suh

et al. 2022

JPM

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The precision health era is likely to reduce and respond to antimicrobial resistance (AMR). Our stewardship and precision efforts share terminology, seeking to deliver the “right drug, at the right dose, at the right time.” Already, rapid diagnostic testing, phylogenetic surveillance, and real-time outbreak response provide just a few examples of molecular advances we dub “precision stewardship.” However, the AMR causal factors range from the molecular to that of global health policy. Mirroring the cross-sectoral nature of AMR science, the research addressing the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of AMR ranges across academic scholarship. As the rise of AMR is accompanied by an escalating sense of its moral and social significance, what is needed is a parallel field of study. In this paper, we offer a gap analysis of this terrain, or an agenda for “the ELSI of precision stewardship.” In the first section, we discuss the accomplishments of a multi-decade U.S. national investment in ELSI research attending to the advances in human genetics. In the next section, we provide an overview of distinct ELSI topics pertinent to AMR. The distinctiveness of an ELSI agenda for precision stewardship suggests new opportunities for collaboration to build the stewardship teams of the future.

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Communicating antimicrobial resistance: the need to go beyond human health

Cited by 5 publications

References 19 publications

Antibiotic Resistance Awareness among Undergraduate Students in Quito, Ecuador

Antibiotic Resistance Awareness among Undergraduate Students in Quito, Ecuador

In critique of anthropocentrism: a more-than-human ethical framework for antimicrobial resistance

The New Precision Stewards?

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