THE SCOPE OF COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT (CE) APPROACHES TO TACKLE AMR

Aim: Creating behavioral changes with regards to antimicrobial use will safeguard both existing and future treatments but calls for a radical overhaul of traditional antimicrobial resistance (AMR) research. Changing behavior requires engaging with people at a local level to understand their specific experiences and challenges. The Community Engagement (CE) method represents a potential solution that is being utilized by several AMR research groups. If we can synthesize learnings from these interventions, then we can develop a collective understanding of their scope tackle AMR across contexts. Methods: This presentation describes a synthesis of existing knowledge and experience. It is the work of a GCRF Challenge Cluster funded in 2020 to develop community-led solutions to AMR across the One Health context. We present a macro-level synthesis of group discussions and learnings embedded in recent literature. Results: CE interventions focus on human health impacts, and the demand-side drivers of AMR. Most strategies favour a mixed method approach generating research data, and community-owned, co-produced outputs. This can facilitate the development of locally specific and meaningful solutions to AMR. However, the specificity of mixed method approaches also present challenges for scaling, sustaining, and evaluating CE activities within the AMR sphere. Conclusions: CE can facilitate two-way knowledge exchange between research teams and communities which helps contextualise local AMR challenges, and supports the development of meaningful solutions. However, this does not yet extend to the broader One Health dimensions of AMR. We will discuss gaps in the AMR landscape which could benefit from CE interventions and suggest the barriers responsible for the lack of uptake so far