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We must harness the power of social and behavioural science against the growing pandemic of antimicrobial resistance

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Social and behavioural science offers a valuable toolkit for combating pandemics, but has not been broadly applied to tackle the rising pandemic of antimicrobial resistance.

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Fig. 1: Four solutions for advancing social and behavioural science research on antimicrobial resistance.

References

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Acknowledgements

E.C. is supported by Wellcome Trust Career Development Award 225960/Z/22 and grant 226690/Z/22.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, University of Essex, Colchester, UK

    Miroslav Sirota & Andriana Theodoropoulou

  2. World Health Organization Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Katrine Bach Habersaat, Robb Butler, Tiina Likki & Danilo Lo Fo Wong

  3. Health Communication, Institute for Planetary Health Behaviour, University of Erfurt, Erfurt, Germany

    Cornelia Betsch, Mattis Geiger & Elisabeth D. C. Sievert

  4. Health Communication, Implementation Research, Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine Hamburg, Hamburg, Germany

    Cornelia Betsch, Mattis Geiger & Elisabeth D. C. Sievert

  5. Behavioural and Experimental Economics Team, Ministry of Health, Bratislava, Slovakia

    Daniela Lejla Bonga

  6. Nuffield Department of Primary Care Health Sciences, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK

    Aleksandra Borek & Marta Wanat

  7. Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations, Nairobi, Kenya

    Anica Buckel & Mark Caudell

  8. Division of Medical Education, University of Manchester, Manchester, UK

    Lucie Byrne-Davis & Jo Hart

  9. Division of Infectious Diseases & HIV Medicine, Department of Medicine, Groote Schuur Hospital, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa

    Esmita Charani

  10. Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Vienna, Austria

    Marina Gross & Robert Böhm

  11. Institute of Global Health Innovation, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Olga Kostopoulou

  12. School of Psychology and Vision Sciences, University of Leicester, Leicester, UK

    Eva M. Krockow

  13. Department of Psychology, University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Ana P. Santana & Robert Böhm

  14. Department of Applied Health Research, University College London, London, UK

    Alistair Thorpe

  15. Department of Internal Medicine, University of Utah School of Medicine, Salt Lake City, UT, USA

    Alistair Thorpe

  16. Copenhagen Center for Social Data Science (SODAS), University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

    Robert Böhm

Authors
  1. Miroslav Sirota
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  2. Katrine Bach Habersaat
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  3. Cornelia Betsch
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  4. Daniela Lejla Bonga
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  5. Aleksandra Borek
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  6. Anica Buckel
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  7. Robb Butler
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  8. Lucie Byrne-Davis
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  9. Mark Caudell
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  10. Esmita Charani
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  11. Mattis Geiger
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  12. Marina Gross
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  13. Jo Hart
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  14. Olga Kostopoulou
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  15. Eva M. Krockow
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  16. Tiina Likki
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  17. Danilo Lo Fo Wong
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  18. Ana P. Santana
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  19. Elisabeth D. C. Sievert
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  20. Andriana Theodoropoulou
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  21. Alistair Thorpe
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  22. Marta Wanat
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  23. Robert Böhm
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Miroslav Sirota.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Nature Human Behaviour thanks the anonymous reviewers for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Sirota, M., Habersaat, K.B., Betsch, C. et al. We must harness the power of social and behavioural science against the growing pandemic of antimicrobial resistance. Nat Hum Behav 8, 11–13 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41562-023-01762-y

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