Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is among the biggest threats to global health. Despite growing efforts to tackle this problem, global antibiotic overuse fosters the development of AMR. Behavioral insights from psychological studies help to understand and possibly change problematic use and prescription behavior, but measurement instruments to capture related constructs that adhere to psychometric quality standards are missing. With this project, we aim at filling this information gap by developing psychological measures to assess AMR-related knowledge, attitudes, and decision making that overcome psychometric limitations of earlier instruments. The new measures will allow the assessment of individual factors related to AMR, will be published as open source material, and can be used in a wide range of contexts both in research and practice across countries. Furthermore, when the new measurement instruments are available, we will employ them to investigate causes and effects of antibiotics overuse and test interventions to counter this problem, in both the global north and the global south.

• Duration: 04/2022 - 2025
• Team: Dr. Mattis Geiger,  Dr. Lars Korn, Elisabeth Sievert
• In collaboration with: Prof. Dr. Robert Böhm (University of Vienna), Prof. Dr. Oliver Wilhelm (Ulm University), and Dr. Denise Dekker (Bernhard Nocht Institute for Tropical Medicine).

Behavioural Insights for Antibiotic Stewardship: An Interdisciplinary Pilot Project in Ghana (BIAS)

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is a critical global health threat, with a particularly high burden in the Global South. Key drivers include antibiotic misuse, self-medication, over-the-counter sales without proper diagnosis, and antibiotic use in livestock. These behaviors accelerate resistance and highlight the need to understand AMR as both a medical and behavioral issue. Despite progress in clinical research, there is a lack of psychologically sound, culturally adapted tools to assess knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors related to AMR. Yet, understanding the psychological processes behind decision-making is essential to addressing AMR effectively.

Thus, the goal of the project is to adapt and validate the psychological assessment tool to match Ghanaian contexts through a mixed-method design, using qualitative as well as quantitative research methods. Utilizing the adapted assessment tool will increase understanding of the contextual, behavioral, and cultural factors related to the prudent vs. inappropriate use of antibiotics, which is key to developing effective and culturally sensitive behavior-change interventions.

• Duration: 04/2022 - 2025
• Team: Dr. Lars Korn, Lena Rüger, Dr. Mattis GeigerDr. Cornelia Betsch, John Amuasi
• Funding: BNITM, G-WAC

Replicating Psychological Research in the Global South (RepSouth)

Effective health communication interventions are critical for addressing planetary health challenges, such as infectious disease outbreaks. Psychological research underlying these interventions predominantly originates from the Global North, leading to uncertainties regarding potential effectiveness and applicability in different cultural and regional contexts. Also, replications are particularly important given the ongoing replication and universality crises in psychology, where findings often fail to generalize across cultures and contexts. Taken together, cross-cultural validations are urgently needed. This project addresses these gaps by testing often-quoted health communication strategies in the Global North to increase vaccination readiness, namely communicating disease risks and debunking vaccine myths, in Lambaréné, Gabon.

A randomized controlled trial will evaluate how targeted video interventions affect vaccination readiness for diseases like COVID-19 and Malaria. The study site was chosen for its high disease burden and cultural distinctiveness, offering valuable insights into the cross-cultural applicability of communication strategies. Data collection in Gabon is now complete, and we are currently preparing to replicate the study in Germany. This cross-cultural approach will help determine how communication interventions need to be adapted across different populations to effectively promote vaccination. 

• Duration: 01/2022 - 2025
• Team: Lars Korn, Paul Anthony Mboumessieyi Ngorouma,  Dr. Mattis Geiger, Pamela Minsoko, Elisabeth Sievert, Gaylord Lucien Ondoumbe,  Dr. Cornelia Betsch, Selidji Todagbe Agnandji
• Funding: BNITM

Monitoring Health Perceptions and Behaviors in Sub-Sahara Africa (Africa Panel)

AFRICA PANEL is an annual survey project that collects social science data from people living in Sub-Saharan Africa. The project uses Meta platforms (Facebook and Instagram) for participant recruitment and was launched to address the lack of data on health perceptions, attitudes, knowledge, and behaviors in the Global South. By directly engaging individuals across the region, the project generates valuable insights into how health-related issues are understood and experienced in local contexts.

The project offers several important advantages: It fills a critical gap in global health and social science research, provides direct access to diverse perspectives, and enables scalable and cost-effective data collection through digital platforms. The insights gathered support evidence-based and tailored intervention development to the needs of communities in Sub-Saharan Africa.

• Team:  Dr. Cornelia Betsch, Lars Korn,  Dr. Mattis Geiger, Jan Priebe, Maximilian Guigas, GESIS – Leibniz-Institut für Sozialwissenschaften
• Funding: BNITM

Health Nationalism and Its Psychological Implications (H-Nation)

Health nationalism, which refers to the tendency of countries with greater resources to prioritize their own populations during global health crises (i.e., global vaccine distribution during the COVID-19 pandemic), can lead to unequal access to medical innovations and exacerbate public health challenges such as antimicrobial resistance (AMR). In this project we investigate whether exclusion from new technology induces negative emotional reactions and reduces feelings of global solidarity. In a first preregistered randomized-control trial, participants from both the Global North and the Global South were exposed to scenarios depicting restricted versus equal access to newly developed antibiotics. The results revealed that restricted access elicited more negative emotional responses, particularly among participants from the Global South. Also, we found that people from the Global South tended to rate others with access to antibiotics as less warm (i.e., feelings of trustworthiness and friendliness of the other group), suggesting a decline in perceived solidarity. These initial findings indicate potential behavioral and emotional shifts due to exclusion from new technologies. Ongoing follow-up studies aim to better understand these effects and test whether targeted communication strategies can help reduce negative emotional responses in situations of restricted access.

• Team: Lars Korn,  Dr. Cornelia Betsch, Elisabeth Sievert, Robert Böhm, Rian Groß
• Funding: BNITM, University of Erfurt

Planetary Health Action Suvey (PACE)

CliMed – Climate and Health Communication by Medical Professionals