Risking antimicrobial resistance: A one health study of antibiotic use and its societal aspects

Abstract

This chapter introduces readers to the content, aim, and organization of this edited volume. The anthology addresses a significant threat to public health: the potentially fatal risk of antimicrobial resistance as caused by excessive use of antibiotics in health care and the veterinary sector. In this chapter, we outline its three main, recurring perspectives: ‘One Health’, the Danish context, and the social and human factors. The One Health perspective refers to a shared paradigm, which acknowledges the mutual impact of human and animal antibiotic consumption. Human and veterinary biological processes resemble and interact with each other, and so excessive use in either sector needs to be restrained. The Danish context, we argue, is particularly suited for ‘text book’ scrutiny as it exhibits a lower general level of antibiotic resistance than many other countries in spite of being, for instance, a country with significant veterinary production. We similarly argue that social science and humanities offer valuable, if not essential, perspectives to the issue of antimicrobial resistance. One of these perspectives is unfolded in details in the chapter, namely the concept of risk which informs all of the volume’s subsequent empirical studies.