Humanities and social sciences in One Health: Promoting just and responsible antibiotic behaviour in society
Antibiotic resistance is an increasing global health challenge that cannot be solved solely through increased awareness. This research project, conducted in Sweden, Italy, and Bulgaria, explores how values, norms, and sociocultural factors influence antibiotic use – with the aim of promoting more responsible behavior and developing effective strategies to combat resistance.
Details
- Period: 2025-05-01 – 2028-04-30
- Budget: 3,600,000 SEK
- Funder: Swedish Research Council
- Type of funding: Project grant
Socially responsible antibiotic behaviour
Raising public awareness about antibiotic resistance and proper antibiotic use is a necessary but insufficient means to change behaviour. This is because antibiotic resistance is a complex phenomenon influenced by many factors. This three-year project will be carried out in Sweden, Italy, and Bulgaria with the purpose of developing a context-sensitive transnational public health approach to investigating the values, norms, behavioural and sociocultural determinants of antibiotic resistance and fostering socially responsible antibiotic behaviour.
Specifically, the project aims to:
- Exploring the values, norms, and behavioural and sociocultural determinants of antibiotic misuse, abuse and other behaviour through the One Health perspective;
- Investigating the role of gender perspectives, trust, prosociality, biospherism, and other psychological constructs, social norms, and values to explain antibiotic behaviour;
- Testing behavioural and sociocultural determinants influence on antibiotic behaviour and public responsiveness to social justice and personal and collective responsibility;
- Developing a normatively robust conceptualisation of social justice and responsibility in the antibiotic resistance discourse;
- Creating a multi-layered protocol for investigating values, norms, and behavioural and sociocultural determinants of antibiotic resistance and sharing recommendations for context-sensitive transnational research, policy strategies, and communication.
Collaborators
- Institute of Biomedicine, Eurac Research, Bolzano, Italy
- Erasmus Choice Modelling Centre, Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands
- Bulgarian Association for Personalized Medicine (BAPEMED), Sofia, Bulgaria
People in the project
Mirko Ancillotti
Reseach on public health, ethics, and patient preferences. Works with questions about the effect of lighting, cancer patient preferences, and antibiotic resistance.
Josepine Fernow
Science communicator, project manager, communications strategist and CRB coordinator. Develops strategy and plan for science communication and research impact at the centre and in EU-funded research consortia.
Niklas Juth
Professor of medical ethics and research leader at CRB. Focus on the ethical issues that arise at the intersection of political philosophy and medical ethics. Chair of the ethics council of Region Uppsala.
Deborah Mascalzoni
Research about ethics and policy for advanced research approaches in genetics and biomaterials with the integration of participant-centric approaches.
Jorien Veldwijk
Associated researcher & Assistant professor at Erasmus School of Health Policy & Management. Expert on Discrete Choice Experiments.
