Professional and Public Engagement, Education and Training Activities (ESPAUR Report 2024-2025)

Le résumé fourni par la source

Abstract Background Public engagement and education, and professional education are two of the nine outcomes outlined in the UK 5-year National Action Plan (NAP) for antimicrobial resistance (AMR) from 2024 to 2029. The implementation of effective strategies in these areas can help to facilitate impactful behaviour change around AMR.1,2 This abstract outlines a range of initiatives undertaken during the 2024 and 2025 financial year. Professional Education and Training The TARGET programme continued its successful webinar series with the Royal College of General Practitioners (RCGP) for primary care clinicians, delivering three webinars covering antimicrobial stewardship (AMS) topics.3 Each webinar received high engagement and positive feedback from attendees. The national rollout of TARGET AMS training reached over 1,000 primary care professionals across England. Evaluation findings showed significant improvement of attendees’ knowledge, confidence, and intentions to implement AMS actions (Figure 1), as well as a reduction in antibiotic prescribing.Figure 1.Healthcare professionals’ agreement to AMR statements before (n=926) and after TARGET training (n=656). Professional Engagement England’s annual campaign for World AMR Awareness Week (WAAW) and European Antibiotic Awareness Day comprised a toolkit of promotional resources aiming to increase public and professional awareness of AMR. The toolkit website was visited over 4,000 times during the campaign period (September to December 2024) and a webinar to launch the campaign attracted almost 1,000 registrations. Healthcare professionals found the campaign effective, and awareness of the campaign was correlated with better knowledge of antimicrobial use and resistance (z = -4.948, p<0.001). The annual TARGET AMS campaign for general practitioners in 2024 achieved high engagement with over 45,000 RCGP members reached and more than 1.2 million views on Google and social media. The ongoing Antibiotic Guardian pledge-based campaign, which aims to increase engagement in AMS activities, received almost 13,000 pledges in 2024, primarily from health or social care professionals (80%) and has received 190,648 pledges via the main page from the inception of the campaign in 2014 to the end of 2024 (Figure 2.).4 Figure 2.Antibiotic guardian pledges. Permission for use granted by UKHSA ESPAUR team. Public Education The international e-Bug programme develops evidence-based resources to educate children and young people on infection prevention and control (IPC).5 The programme expanded global networks over 2024 and 2025, partnering with seven international partners to implement IPC education in their respective countries. Public Engagement The UK survey on AMR highlighted gaps in public understanding of antimicrobial use and resistance, particularly among younger people, highlighting the need for renewed public education campaigns to promote appropriate antibiotic use. Consequently, the UKHSA delivered a public awareness campaign to engage this group on the issue of AMR. The campaign introduced a mascot, Andi Biotic, to deliver important messaging around correct antibiotic behaviours and AMR awareness. An evaluation of the campaign is ongoing to review its effectiveness, but preliminary findings show that social media engagement outperformed similar campaigns such as WAAW. However, campaign evaluation can be difficult with a rapid review of cost effectiveness analyses for AMR campaigns highlighting challenges in assessing the cost-effectiveness of AMR campaigns. The challenges included identifying and measuring appropriate outcomes, including broader societal impacts, capturing relevant outcomes over a longer timescale, and accounting for the cost of AMR. The review demonstrated that these challenges have remained significant obstacles for over 20-years, making it difficult for policy makers to assess return on investment of public campaigns to combat AMR. The lack of methodological progress in this area has limited the availability of economic evidence to inform decision-making. Planned Future Work Future professional engagement includes the continuation of the TARGET and RCGP webinar series and the full evaluation of the national roll out of TARGET training. Public engagement will include new school lesson plans from e-Bug on vector-borne diseases and the second phase of the UKHSA Keep Antibiotics Working campaign continued during WAAW in November 2025.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.