Master's student projects
Five years of National Action Plans on Antimicrobial Resistance: What impact on surveillance?
Firdaousse Ouknider, M.Phil in International Community Health, UiO
The project aims to evaluate the impact of National Action Plans (NAPs) on AMR surveillance and to understand some of the challenges facing their implementation. This is done using a mixed methodology that mines three sources of data: Sixty NAPs, AMR data on the Global Antimicrobial Resistance Surveillance System (GLASS), and interviews with AMR experts.
Understanding AMR literacy – A case study from Kangra, Himachal Pradesh, India
Saeka Zafar, Master's in Health economics, policy & management, UiO
The research will seek to understand the barriers & drivers of the knowledge, attitude, and practice of the community towards antibiotic & antimicrobial resistance (AMR) to bridge the healthcare literacy gap for AMR. The Research Methodology will follow the principle of Health literacy toolkit – Ophelia and analyse qualitative interviews with 30 individuals through purposeful sampling. The interviews will be analysed based on the construct of Health belief model (Kegeles, 1980) and principles of interpretivism to understand the role of medium & message for AMR literacy in the community.
Antibiotic use and antimicrobial resistance prevention in India: exploring nurses' practices, perspectives, and knowledge
Thea Marie Tvedt, M.Phil in International Community Health, UiO
Nurses are central to infection prevention management, and there is a growing recognition of their key position to optimize antibiotic use in hospitals. The aim of the study is to identify determinants influencing and guiding nurses' clinical practices in their usage of antibiotics at a tertiary care hospital in North India. Through ethnographic methods, this study will provide a comprehensive insight into hospital staff nurses' role and their opportunities to optimize antibiotic use and prevent antimicrobial resistance.
Community Health Literacy Assessment: Using OPHELIA Framework for Introducing Antimicrobial Resistance Literacy
Sai Teja Muramalla, M.Phil in International Community Health, UiO
Antimicrobial resistance is a significant problem, and often AMR is driven by the poor understanding of the concept of antibiotics usage among community people. This project uses the Ophelia (Optimizing health literacy) framework to introduce the health literacy of AMR in a low-resource setting. The project aims to evaluate the AMR literacy level of the community people and develop intervention mapping. The project's outcome is targeted to provide the framework for healthcare organizations to develop interventions to meet the health literacy needs of AMR.
MD-PhD projects
Antibiotics use in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon
Amanda Hylland Spjeldnæs, Department of Community Medicine and Global Health, UiO
Despite the increasing awareness of antibiotic resistance worldwide, there has been done little research on the connection between access to healthcare, knowledge about antibiotics and the use of antibiotics in refugee camps. This project investigates these topics in a Palestinian refugee camp in Lebanon, to develop a better understanding of the factors that influence how antibiotics are circulated and used. The method is a fieldwork in the camp, where I conducted participatory observation in camp pharmacies, observing the circulation of antibiotics and how people access medicines in the camp, as well as individual interviews and group workshops with pharmacy workers and people living in the camp, exploring how people use antibiotics and actions to reduce resistance.
PhD projects
Institutionalizing work around ABR (Antibiotic resistance) reporting system in resource-constrained settings: A case study from India
Yogita Thakral, Department of Informatics, UiO
A digital ABR reporting system represents a novel intervention within the context of a resource-constrained public health facility in India, and also in most low and middle-income countries. This intervention raises the need for new information practices around data management, output generation, and the use of data for supporting policy interventions and clinical practice. The study examines the nature of these new practices, how they interact with what exists, and how these can be made part of integral work routines of the health facility.
Generics across the Ocean: Production, regulation, and export of Indian antibiotics for African markets
Lise Bjerke, Department of Community Medicine and Global Health, UiO
India is one of the world’s leading producers of generic medicines. This project explores the role of India's emerging pharmaceutical industry for the production of antibiotics, with the aim to develop a broad social and historical understanding of the production, regulation and export of antibiotics from India. The study focuses on the provision of antibiotics to African countries, and aims to identify mechanisms that shape and govern the flow of antibiotics from India to Africa. The project is part of the From Asia to Africa: Antibiotic trajectories across the Indian Ocean (FAR) project.