Ep X7. How do we change behaviour around antimicrobial resistance?
Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is not only a biological issue, but a complex social problem as well. As a consequence, changing the way patients, healthcare professionals and policymakers think about antibiotics will require input from both the natural and social sciences. In March 2021, the Uppsala Health Summit on “Managing antimicrobial resistance through behaviour change” tackled this very problem. We spoke to three key participants – Otto Cars, Eldar Shafir and Vanessa Carter – to learn more. We talked to them about how the COVID-19 pandemic might affect AMR globally, how the context around us influences the decisions we make, and how patients’ stories can help communicate the urgency of AMR, among other things. We hope you thoroughly enjoy this episode.
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The Uppsala Health Summit is a recurring international policy arena for dialogue on healthcare challenges and how we can overcome them.
Otto Cars is founder and now senior advisor to ReACT (Action on Antibiotic Resistance). He set the scene at Uppsala Health Summit 2021 with a lecture on the current status of AMR globally. In a recent interview, he described how to make the most of the COVID-19 momentum to spur much-needed action in the AMR sphere.
Eldar Shafir is professor of behavioural science and public policy at Princeton University, with a special interest in the effect of poverty on decision-making. In his keynote lecture at the summit, he commented on the AMR problem from a behavioral perspective. He also points us to a 2016 research paper on the effect of behavioural interventions on inappropriate antibiotic prescribing.
Vanessa Carter is a South Africa-based patient advocate for AMR and e-patient scholar at Stanford University Medicine X. She suggests reading Tom Ferguson’s white paper on e-patients and their contribution to healthcare.
This episode was produced in collaboration with Uppsala Monitoring Centre’s Drug Safety Matters podcast/Uppsala Antibiotic Center’s The AMR Studio podcast. Tune into their show for more stories on patient safety/antimicrobial resistance.
If you have any comments and suggestions you can email us here, or tweet to us (@UAC_UU) using the hashtag #theAMRStudio.