Evidence for effective AMR communications and education

This project is based on meetings with stakeholders who helped us finalise Promoting Australian general public awareness and action on antimicrobial resistance, as part of our programme of ARC-funded research on policy and communications on AMR and AMS. The meetings were held in November 2020 and participants included decision-makers, clinicians leading AMS in hospital and primary care settings, researchers and academics. These discussions helped to refine our dissemination of findings but they also identified ways in which stronger frameworks, evidence and advocacy could be built to support the implementation of interventions. Stakeholder discussions identified the need for ready access to summaries of evidence of effectiveness and communications theories to drive implementation, including:
Which communications and education are effective?
What can we learn from lower prescribing countries, e.g., STRAMA in Sweden, Netherlands?
What can we learn from other domains, i.e., climate change policy and communications, cancer, HCV, vaccine hesitancy research and practice?
How to move beyond awareness/knowledge as we know it doesn’t covary strongly with behaviour?
How to use social network approaches, e.g., cultures of care in HIV treatment support, trusted figures?
How to address the problematic language of antibiotics and antimicrobials?
How to use social media more effectively?
How to design and strengthen evaluation science to incorporate co-design and stakeholder involvement?
How to build the theory-base for implementation and harmonise it with AMR systems?

Awarded $50,000 AUD