Waves of attention

Waves of attention: patterns and themes of international antimicrobial resistance reports, 1945-2020

In 2015 the WHO announced its Global Action Plan, the culmination of a decade of unprecedented international efforts to address the global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR). However, even prior to the current global pandemic, international attention to AMR had begun to wane.

In their recent publication in BMJ Global Health, Dr. Claas Kirchhelle, UCD School of History, and colleagues at Prince of Wales Hospital, University of South Wales and University of Sydney, Australia, Paris-Dauphine University, France, University of Oslo, Norway, Boston University and Harvard Medical School, USA and York University, Canada argue that understanding the reasons for this decline, and the way the AMR problem has been framed by reports and decision-makers at the international level, is important for the long-term success of initiatives to preserve antibiotic efficacy and for maintaining pan-national investment in AMR solutions.

They combine quantitative and qualitative approaches from history and the social sciences to analyze the patterns and content of international AMR reporting.

The full paper is available from BMJ Global Health, here.