BSAVA Congress lecture looks at antibiotic resistance from a social science perspective
Although antibiotics are used in agriculture to treat infections, they are often given to healthy animals as a way to protect against infection. This method is more common in intensive farming conditions because it reduces the need to clean out sheds and decreases the amount of labour a farmer has to employ.
But in December 2015, as part of a government-led review into antimicrobial resistance, Lord Jim O'Neill published a report on antimicrobials in agriculture and the environment. In it, farmers are urged to dramatically reduce the amount of antibiotics used in agriculture for fears over the threat to human health.
This was not unexpected. Indeed, many national strategies employed to manage antibiotic resistance call for behaviour modification with regard to antibiotic prescribing and infection prevention and control. However, some studies show that interventions are more likely to be more effective if, while aiming at changing behaviour, they employ theories from the behavioural and social sciences.
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