What triggers change in antimicrobial use?

Enticott, Gareth ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5510-9597, Grondal, Hedvig, Hemonic, Anne, O'Mahony, Kieran, Rouget, Christine, Rousset, Natalie, Shortall, Orla and Sutherland, Lee-Ann 2024. What triggers change in antimicrobial use? EuroChoices 23 (2) , pp. 22-28. 10.1111/1746-692X.12449

Preview

PDF - Published Version Available under License Creative Commons Attribution. Download (4MB) | Preview

Abstract

This article considers how different ‘triggers' contribute to changes in the use of antimicrobials. Drawing on the Triggering Change model, the article suggests that the use of antimicrobials is path dependent: economically, socially and culturally invested in maintaining a steady trajectory, with incremental changes. Triggering events – such as farm succession, financial crisis, or disease outbreak – are required to break these dependencies and stimulate transitions to new farming trajectories. The article investigates which triggering events are significant in the context of responsible antimicrobial usage, in three European countries, spanning the beef, dairy, poultry and pig sectors. Results demonstrated that major reductions in antimicrobial use are often part of larger transition processes. Triggers led to major changes on farm which included reduction in antimicrobial use amongst other changes. When antimicrobial change occurred in isolation, it was typically in response to legislation, and progressed incrementally over time. To achieve major changes in antimicrobial use thus requires policies which work with trigger events such as supporting training of successors, and enabling farmers who have experienced major disease outbreaks to ‘build back better’. Working to shape what farmers understand as ‘good farming’ through education, regulations and benchmarking, are also important options.

Item Type:	Article
Date Type:	Publication
Status:	Published
Schools:	Geography and Planning (GEOPL)
Publisher:	Wiley
ISSN:	1478-0917
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	17 September 2024
Date of Acceptance:	15 July 2024
Last Modified:	04 Oct 2024 08:31
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/172192

Actions (repository staff only)

Edit Item