International

July 3 2025

Webinar: equity analysis using AMR surveillance data

Hayley Stewart International AMR, Equity 0

This blog post, by Meenakshi Monga and Ralalicia Limato, brings us up to speed on a recent GEAR up webinar on the use of surveillance data. Speakers from Lao PDR and Tanzania provided real-world examples and there was plenty of time for questions and answers!

In early 2025, the GEAR-UP team travelled to Tanzania, Lao PDR and Uganda to collaborate with country grantee teams on the analysis of tailored approaches for incorporating gender and equity into the analysis of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) surveillance and antimicrobial use (AMU) data. Through hands-on analysis, GEAR up focused on building local capacity, sharing lessons, and creating frameworks that reflect the needs of each country. These visits represented more than technical support—they were part of a bigger shift toward inclusive, data-driven strategies that can strengthen responses to curb AMR.

To share experiences on this work, on 29 May 2025, the GEAR up consortium hosted a webinar titled “Understanding an Equity Analysis Using Surveillance Data Experience.” In this session, GEAR up and collaborators presented the step-by-step approach to examine AMR and AMU data through gender and equity lenses, as well as the results from Lao PDR and Tanzania.

Russell Dacombe, Senior Research Associate at LSTM, opened the session with a warm welcome and set the tone for the discussions ahead. He was followed by Andy Ramsey and Ralalicia Limato, GEAR up consultants, who shared experiences and key takeaways from their recent country visits. Their presentations offered practical insights into how an equity-focused approach is being applied to surveillance data in the field.

One of the highlights came from Lao PDR, where May Soe Thwe, Technical and Data Project Lead at Fondation Mérieux, presented learnings from an equity analysis of Phase 1 AMR surveillance and AMU data. Her presentation focused on data from urinary tract infections (UTIs), melioidosis, and surgical antibiotic prophylaxis —shedding light on inequitable risks of developing AMR and contracting infections between people from different sexes, age groups, and occupations.

From Tanzania, Joel Manyahi, Associate Professor in Microbiology and Clinical Microbiologist at Muhimbili University of Health and Allied Sciences and Muhimbili National Hospital, shared real-world applications of equity assessments with an example of UTIs.

The event wrapped up with an interactive Question and Answer session, allowing participants to raise questions and explore the practicalities of integrating equity into surveillance work. Russell Dacombe then closed the session with a brief reflection and thanks to all presenters and attendees.

Diagnosing and uncovering comorbidities beyond clinical data

One key area of discussion revolved around the depth of data analysis. While national surveys might not always capture extensive information like patient occupation, the ability to look further into diagnosis and comorbidities is vital. Analysing AMR data requires a structured approach to uncover meaningful insights.

Discussion centred around the importance of collecting a broader range of variables beyond just clinical data and steps of AMR data analysis with a focus on gender and equity. The process involves identifying key variables and reliable data sources, defining important stratifiers such as age, gender, or geographic location to ensure equity-focused analysis. Next, selecting relevant specimen types to analyse which may inform the suspected infections or infection sites. Following, identifying bacteriologically confirmed infections and the identified bacterial pathogens. The final step involves analysing AMR patterns based on stratifiers mentioned above. The outcomes showed that different sexes, age groups, or occupations have different risks of infection exposure and AMR development.

AMR surveillance: Addressing patient tracking and data duplication

AMR surveillance provides evidence needed to track resistance patterns to inform decisions on treatment guidelines and shape policies. This enables healthcare systems to identify emerging threats, allocate resources efficiently and measure intervention impacts. It also helps in identifying trends, prioritise high-risk populations and guide antibiotic stewardship programmes for timely and targeted response to AMR. However, one of the persistent challenges in data analysis, especially in regions where unique patient identifiers are not universally established, is tracking individual patients accurately and avoiding duplication in surveillance data. This is important because multiple samples from the same patient can skew results if not properly identified.

In Tanzania, regional and district healthcare facilities address this by using health information systems with unique patient IDs that remain consistent across visits, ensuring only the first occurrence of a condition is included in surveillance reports. Where unique IDs are unavailable, facilities cross-reference patient details and specimen numbers, analysing only one isolate per patient to prevent duplication. These practical solutions offer valuable insights for other countries facing similar data management challenges, proving effective patient tracking is achievable. The discussion also touched upon the importance of incorporating social and environmental risk factors alongside microbiological data. A more holistic approach—looking beyond the clinical aspects to consider a wider social context — can provide a better understanding of patient outcomes and inform more targeted, equitable interventions.

Moving Forward: Synthesising learning into action

The discussion highlighted an important message on the urgent need for people and systems centric approach towards analysing AMR surveillance data with an equity lens. As a way forward GEAR up team is synthesising these learnings into a guidance document to assist others in navigating the gender and equity analysis process, built upon the real-world experiences shared.

We extend our gratitude to all presenters and participants for their insightful contributions and engagement. Stay tuned for further resources as we continue to advance our understanding and application of AMR surveillance data for a more equitable future.

June 20 2025

The Journey to Equity: Using Art to Reframe AMR through a Gender Lens

Hayley Stewart International 0

In this reflective video, Professor Sally Theobald from the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine joins the GEAR Up project to spotlight the urgent need for gender equity in addressing antimicrobial resistance (AMR). She explains that AMR research has traditionally been dominated by biomedical, laboratory-based approaches – often missing the broader social and gendered realities that shape people’s access to care and responses to treatment.

The video captures a creative workshop where participants explore collage as a method for communicating across languages, cultures, and disciplines. This environmentally sensitive and accessible medium encourages a slower, more embodied way of thinking – sparking emotional engagement as well as intellectual reflection.

As one participant notes, “collage lets us design with intent,” giving visual form to complex ideas about progress, fragility, and hope.

Throughout the workshop, visuals like symbolic cars, heart icons, and pill shapes emerge, each representing key elements of research, resilience, and evolving health systems. Participants describe their work as a shared visioning process, using art to express a theory of change that can be tested and co-developed with global partners, such as community-based researchers in Kenya.

“The Journey to Equity” ultimately becomes more than just a title – it captures the spirit of GEAR Up: a collective journey toward more inclusive, intersectional, and grounded responses to AMR.

This approach moves beyond narrow data and siloed health systems, aiming instead to understand the social drivers of infection and create space for diverse voices in shaping solutions.

June 12 2025

Groundbreaking gender and antimicrobial resistance project wins art prize with collage

Hayley Stewart International AMR, Event, Gender 0

GEAR up, supported by the UK aid Fleming Fund, is a groundbreaking research consortium looking at links between gender, equity and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which has been named as a finalist for the ReAct Africa Art Prize for their work presented in a collage.

This recognition highlights the importance of the project’s innovative communications approach. Using art to shed light and prompt discussion on complex scientific issues like AMR, illustrating its real-world impact on communities and health systems.

GEAR up has been invited to present at the ReAct Africa and South Centre AMR Conference in Lusaka, Zambia, on 11 – 12 June 2025, and will be represented by Sneha Paul, of BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, who submitted the collage work.

The collage series was created earlier this year when the consortium team – comprised of researchers from Africa, Asia and Europe – came together in a series of meetings to visualise their work. Team members shared their hopes and fears in the context of their work, considered the impact they would like to have and tried to visualise a world where AMR is no longer a challenge and threat.

The vibrant and thought-provoking collages use all manner of materials, from magazines and newspapers to medication packaging, fabric and beads. They explore themes of health, illness, antibiotic use, gender, communication, and the interconnectedness of people and health systems. The collages invite a deeper reflection on how we see, speak, and respond to health, gender and equity in complex, integrated systems.

Lived experience

“Facts alone don’t move people—stories and visuals do,” says Bachera Aktar from GEAR up’s partner in Bangladesh, BRAC James P Grant School of Public Health, BRAC University. “Creative communication methods, like collage, don’t just illustrate science; they humanise it. Collages are more than just art; they’re a dialogue, a way of seeing and feeling. Layer by layer, it helps us uncover the deep connections between gender, AMR, inequality, and lived experience.”

Expressing humanity within research

“We are facing a wave of health misinformation and disinformation. It’s confusing, alienating and designed to foster mistrust,” says Kate Hawkins of Pamoja Communications, who led the creative process. “Expressing humanity within our research communication and recognising the complex feelings and standpoints of receivers of health messaging is essential to create the solidarity needed to face the challenge ahead.”

You can access the collage work along with a short film about the process on our website: https://gearupaction.org/picturing-gender-equity-and-amr-in-collage/

Please contact us if you would like higher quality versions of these files.

About GEAR up

GEAR up seeks to catalyse action on gender and equity within AMR through supporting Fleming Fund country grantees to mainstream gender and equity within routine AMR systems and structures. We aim to increase awareness, and contribute to the knowledge, on structural inequities driving and shaping the AMR response. We also seek to facilitate South-South exchange through building a global community of practice to guide and inspire further action and global knowledge sharing.

GEAR up is funded by the Fleming Fund. The Department of Health and Social Care’s (DHSC) Fleming Fund is a UK aid programme supporting up to 25 countries across Africa and Asia to tackle antimicrobial resistance (AMR), a leading contributor to deaths from infectious diseases worldwide.

The Fleming Fund invests in strengthening AMR surveillance systems through a portfolio of country grants, regional grants, and fellowships managed by Mott MacDonald, and global projects managed by DHSC.

Media Contact:

Kate Hawkins

Head of Communications

GEAR up consortium

kate@pamoja.uk.com

April 30 2025

Gendered vulnerabilities to infectious disease: A call to action for global health equity

Hayley Stewart International AMR, Gender, UHC, Webinar 0

GEAR up colleagues Meenakshi Monga and Katy Davis give in-depth report back from last month’s ‘Gendered vulnerabilities to infectious disease: A call to action for global health equity’ webinar.

Gender profoundly influences health outcomes globally, with women and girls bearing a disproportionate burden of infectious disease, due to complex biological, social, and economic factors forming health obstacles. However, gender considerations often remain on the periphery of global health responses, with policies and programs frequently adopting a “one-size-fits-all” approach that overlooks the distinct needs and experiences of women and girls and non-binary people.

In a recent webinar that underscored the urgent need to dismantle these barriers, experts examined the current landscape of gender inequality and identified innovative and actionable strategies for progress. This included fresh perspectives on vulnerability as a crucial lens for understanding deeper systemic inequities in global health and the critical need for gender-responsive Universal Health Coverage (UHC). Speakers also explored how sustained financial investments are pivotal for closing gender health gaps, while our own GEAR up colleague Dr. Katy Davis spoke about how gender norms and power imbalances influence Antimicrobial Resistance (AMR).

Hosted by the Infectious Disease Alliance (IDA) the webinar served not only as a pivotal platform to examine the current landscape of gender inequality, but also a forum for identifying innovative and actionable strategies for progress.

The webinar featured compelling presentations from Dr. Jessica Ogden and Kinza Hasan, and a dynamic panel discussion with Dr. Irene Aninye, Debanjana Choudhuri, Dr. Katy Davis, and Dr. Michelle Remme, focusing on advocating for gender equity within the infectious disease sphere, particularly concerning equitable policy and the protection of vulnerable populations. A subsequent Q&A session fostered engaging dialogue and exploration of potential solutions.

Keynote highlights: Rethinking vulnerability and universal health coverage

Dr. Jessica Ogden challenged traditional public health frameworks by reframing vulnerability not as an individual deficit, but as a crucial lens for understanding deeper systemic inequities. Drawing lessons from the AIDS crisis, she emphasised the need to shift focus towards structural and social determinants of health. Dr. Ogden critiqued interventions that superficially label themselves “gender transformative” without addressing the underlying systemic issues, often placing the onus of change on marginalised populations. While acknowledging recent positive global developments, she stressed that these are insufficient amidst shrinking global health funding. Her powerful call to action urged collective, cross-sectoral coalition-building across gender, health, education, and economic development sectors.

Kinza Hasan underscored the urgent need for gender-responsive UHC amidst declining international aid and the rise of anti-rights movements. She highlighted the stagnation of progress in gender equality in health, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic, political instability, and backlash against gender rights. Ms. Hasan emphasised that UHC must be inherently gender-responsive, integrating sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and addressing the unique barriers faced by marginalised groups at every level of care. Her recommendations included systemic transformation through primary health care, establishing accountability mechanisms for governments, and safeguarding multilateral spaces from anti-gender movements. She also advocated for intergenerational leadership and the meaningful inclusion of youth in shaping future health systems.

Panel discussion: Advocating for gender equity in infectious disease

The panel discussion, featuring Dr. Irene Aninye, Debanjana Choudhuri, Dr. Katy Davis, and Dr. Michelle Remme, delved deeper into how to promote gender equality across different sectors and at all levels of public health policy and programs.

Key insights from the panel

Dr. Aninye, Chief Science Officer, Society for Women’s Health Research: Sustained financial, temporal, and institutional investments are crucial for closing gender health gaps. Global health initiatives must be context-specific, and disaggregated data collection by sex, gender, and other social markers is essential for equitable interventions.
Debanjana Choudhuri, Executive Director, Women’s Global Network for Reproductive Rights: Gender norms and biases in the Global South significantly limit women’s access to healthcare, particularly SRHR. Addressing stigma, increasing information access, and building the capacity of healthcare providers are vital mitigation strategies, especially amidst global funding cuts impacting SRHR.
Dr. Katy Davis, Post-Doctoral Research Associate, Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, GEAR up Consortium: Gender norms and power imbalances influence AMR, affecting exposure, care-seeking, and socioeconomic outcomes. AMR interventions should address social drivers of disease, led by community priorities, and health surveillance needs intersectional, community-led data collection.
Dr. Michelle Remme, Manager, Thematic Cluster for Human Rights, Gender and Health Equity, The Global Fund: Achieving UHC requires focusing on structural factors like gender inequality, rather than solely on individual behaviour. Addressing women’s lack of agency and investing in community-led organisations and multi-sectoral approaches are critical for tackling gender and social determinants of health.

The Q&A session further emphasised the importance of community-led responses, drawing lessons from HIV and TB activism, and the need for gender and equity considerations in AMR surveillance, including intersectional data analysis to reach marginalised populations.

Conclusion

The webinar underscored that embracing vulnerability could catalyse empathy and drive social change, while equitable health systems demand structural transformation centred on gender-responsive universal health coverage and intersectional justice. Achieving this requires dismantling entrenched inequities through cross-sector collaboration, context-specific interventions, and amplifying marginalised voices, particularly in the Global South. Prioritising disaggregated data, community-led solutions, and sustained investment in grassroots and feminist initiatives is vital to counter misinformation, address gender biases, and reverse setbacks in sexual and reproductive health rights. By reorienting health systems to tackle structural drivers—from antimicrobial resistance to agency barriers—and fostering multi-sectoral alliances, global health can progress towards inclusive, resilient outcomes. The path forward hinges on centring equity, challenging power imbalances, and ensuring that no community is left behind in the pursuit of health justice.

March 7 2025

International Women’s Day: Fighting AMR and empowering women across the life course

Hayley Stewart International AMR, Gender 0

This International Women’s Day our colleague Meenakshi Monga explains that it’s a time to celebrate progress, but also an opportunity to confront the persistent inequalities that hold women back. One crucial, often overlooked, area is the gender-specific impacts of antimicrobial resistance (AMR) on women. AMR is a growing global threat, posing serious challenges to health, and its consequences influence women at every stage of life.

As GEAR up we seek to catalyse action on gender and equity within AMR by supporting Fleming Fund country grantees to mainstream gender and equity within routine AMR systems and structures. GEAR up aims to increase awareness, and contribute to the knowledge, on structural inequities driving and shaping the AMR response, including those affecting women.

What is AMR and why should we care?

AMR occurs when bacteria, viruses, fungi or other parasites become resistant to antibiotics. This makes infections harder to treat, sometime untreatable, thus increasing the risk of severe illness, disability and death. This can be increased by non-completion or non-recommended use of antibiotics (WHO).

The ways that people use antimicrobials are often due to persistent inequities that limit health seeking autonomy, purchasing power when it comes to appropriate medicines and access to diagnostic testing. This can particularly affect women whose choices are limited by social norms and economic inequalities (Gautron et al, 2023). This is not about women misusing medicines, but instead harmful power structures that affect the decisions they can make.

Understanding the impact of AMR on women across life course

AMR is not merely a global health crisis; it is a critical gender equity issue, profoundly impacting women throughout their life course.

Girl infancy and childhood: Vulnerability from the start

Malnutrition increases susceptibility to some resistant infections such as MDR-TB. In food-insecure households, girls may face unequal access to nutritious food and healthcare, compounding this vulnerability.
People can be exposed to AMR through water sources. Girls and women are often responsible for collecting water for households and are therefore more exposed to contaminated water. Furthermore, inadequate sanitation systems increase the risk of resistant infections spreading among girls.

Women in reproductive years: Bearing the burden

Women are largely responsible for household domestic labour, which includes cooking and food handling. Handling uncooked food increases the risk of exposure to resistant infections. Smoke inhalation while cooking can also increase susceptibility to resistant infections such as pneumonia.
Menstruating teenagers and women in many contexts are particularly vulnerable to drug resistant UTIs (Urinary tract infections) and RTIs (Reproductive Tract Infections).
Women often face greater barriers to accessing health information, and associated knowledge about antibiotic use, than men.
Rates of unnecessary prescribing of antimicrobials to pregnant women are very high. Increased exposure to antimicrobials, especially during pregnancy increases their risk of developing resistance.
Women may have to seek permission to access health services from men or older relatives, creating barriers to accessing timely diagnosis and treatment.
Frontline health workers are often predominantly women, and these roles increase exposure to resistant infections, particularly in hospital settings.
Gendered division of farming work may mean that women are particularly exposed to resistant zoonotic disease and antibiotics used in livestock yet may be least targeted in animal vaccination and agricultural or aquacultural AMR training initiatives.

Elderly women: Facing isolation and caregiving challenges

Elderly women have limited access to social networks, social media and health facilities hindering their access to vital information about AMR and antibiotic use.
Hormonal shifts during menopause can further increase susceptibility to infections, thus, highlighting the need for timely treatment.
In many contexts, older women take on caregiving roles of children and ill family members, which can increase their likelihood of exposure to resistant infections.

Accelerating action: A gender-transformative approach

The disproportionate burden of AMR on women and girls calls for serious actions and policy advancement. To effectively combat AMR, a gender-transformative approach can support in addressing the root causes of inequity.

Research on intersectional drivers: We must accelerate actions on the intersectional drivers of AMR, recognising the complex interplay of factors affecting women’s vulnerabilities. This means moving beyond simplistic gender analyses to consider how overlapping social locations, such as socioeconomic status, ethnicity, and geographical location, compound risks. This highlights the need to address social determinants of health in AMR responses (GEAR up).

Gender specific policies: National action plans for AMR should explicitly integrate gender and equity considerations to ensure that interventions are tailored to the diverse needs of all populations, thereby promoting effective and sustainable solutions. Furthermore, it is imperative to involve women leaders at the national level to ensure research-led policy decisions incorporate gender equity considerations into healthcare treatments and AMR national action plans (Lynch I et. al, 2024). This ensures the diverse needs and experiences of women are reflected in national strategies, leading to more effective and equitable outcomes.

Gender-transformative AMR interventions: We need to accelerate the development and implementation of gender-transformative AMR interventions that address the unequal drivers of AMR in human health and agriculture. This approach acknowledges that social and gender norms significantly influence human, environment and agricultural practices that contribute to AMR. For instance, research indicates that women in agricultural settings may have limited access to veterinary services or information on responsible antibiotic use, impacting livestock health and contributing to AMR spread (Bridging the Gender Gap in Animal Health Services, FAO 2024). Interventions that specifically address these unequal drivers of AMR across One Health will ensure equitable access to resources and knowledge.

The participation of women in decision-making: Women-led participation is essential for: Informing research on the intersectional factors driving AMR; shaping gender-specific policies; and delivering gender-transformative interventions for AMR. Their voices are central to addressing AMR in communities. This strategy aligns with the growing recognition that gender-transformative interventions are essential for public health initiatives. For example, in rural communities facing low rates of antibiotic continuation, a woman-led initiative could involve establishing local workshops where women, often primary caregivers, share knowledge about hygiene practices and responsible antibiotic use, fostering community-driven solutions (Barasa V, 2024 and Batheja et al, 2025).

This International Women’s Day, let’s commit to empowering women as change agents in the fight against AMR. By addressing their unique vulnerabilities, we can create a healthier future for all.

December 4 2024

GEAR up discusses One Health at HSR 2024

Hayley Stewart International AMR, Event, HSR, One Health 0

Last month GEAR up’s Rosie Steege presented on gender, equity and AMR at the 8th Global Symposium on Health Systems Research in Nagasaki, as part of a session on social, environmental and ecological justice concerns.

Rosie opened by highlighting the fact that ‘One Health’ centres the interconnectedness of animals, humans and the environment. In doing so, it rejects a reductionist approach, removes binaries and there is therefore significant overlap between One Health and intersectional, feminist thought.

Rosie then used AMR, as a quintessential One Health issue, to highlight the importance of an intersectional & bio-social approach to equitable healthcare.

AMR is it driven and shaped by environmental factors such as climate change, rapid urbanisation and environmental degradation. It also intersects with conflict which results in widespread disruption to healthcare systems, contamination from heavy metals and the establishment of refugee camps. In this way, it intersects with issues of environmental racism for those experiencing poor living conditions globally – including those living in urban informality who face crowded environments, poor access to water and sanitation and live and work in close proximity to animals and wastewater.

The current biomedical approach focusses on AMR surveillance data at facility levels. While we want to celebrate and recognise the amazing efforts in surveillance data globally, we also know that infrastructure has more impact on health than hospitals. So, we need to recognise a biomedical approach doesn’t pay due attention to the structural inequities that shape susceptibility, exposure, access to facilities and experiences of AMR.

Rosie also noted the biomedical approach doesn’t value the knowledge or agency of the communities it most affects. This knowledge is critical as One Health as an approach has been embodied by Indigenous communities for centuries. Therefore, this is also an issue of epistemic injustice, exacerbated by short term funding cycles that create knowledge hierarchies and power imbalances.

Through GEAR up we will be trying to uncover some of these structural inequities that shape AMR globally and work with communities and build a community a practice in this area.

Rosie added that while she had used the example of AMR to highlight this environmental injustice, it likely applies to many other areas in health.

She left attendees with a question, as well as a proposed solution…

What can we do to embed both social and environmental justice into One Health?

We need to support a knowledge shift towards truly transdisciplinary, biosocial, anti-colonial, intersectional approaches that recognise structural inequities. This requires:
- reflecting on our own positionalities
- questioning our assumptions and
- engaging with critical social science work – including ethics, safeguarding and the nature of rights
A collaborative approach is essential but we need to expand our collaborations and recognise there are other types of scientific knowledge – valuing community and indigenous knowledge through co-design and participation to advance both social and environmental justice.

Medical illustration of drug resistant bacteria

November 18 2024

GEAR up team members present at Fleming Fund Fellows Symposium

Hayley Stewart International Event, Fleming Fund 0

Earlier this month GEAR up team members were invited to present to Fleming Fund Fellows – policy makers, practitioners and influencers who are participating in a scheme of professional development and capacity strengthening around AMR in Fleming Fund countries. In this blog Katy Davis reports back on the session’s panel discussion .

Gender and equity is one of the Fleming Fund’s key principles, and Toby Leslie – Global Technical Lead for Fleming Fund at Mott Macdonald – emphasised the need for a keen understanding of aspects of AMR relating to gender and equity and how to address these.

Dr Rosie Steege, Lecturer at Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine and gender and equity lead in GEAR up, introduced the GEAR up consortium, gave a background on principles of gender and equity in infectious disease and presented the initial results of our scoping review and importance of focus on structural drivers of inequities. She emphasised that surveillance data is the tip of the iceberg in terms of understanding the drivers of antimicrobial resistance, and that we need greater understanding and focus on the structural equity dimensions of AMR.

Three GEAR up panellists addressed questions on the importance of gender and equity for the work of the Fleming Fund Fellows and addressing AMR more widely:

Abriti Arjyal, research manager at HERD International, Nepal, emphasised the importance of understanding social roles that influence access to power, resources and opportunities when it comes to antimicrobial resistance and antibiotic access and use. She gave examples of where gender roles affect exposure to infection, awareness of AMR and decision-making power and highlighted that there is a limited understanding of how these factors interact at the interface of human, animal and plant health.

Tahmina Ahmed, a Senior Research Associate at BRAC University, Bangladesh, spoke to the importance of surveillance and antimicrobial use data that is disaggregated by factors such as sex and age. She explained how it is essential for understanding context-specific trends and drivers and for effective design of AMR interventions.

Susan Okioma, Lead Gender Technical Advisor at LVCT Health, Kenya, highlighted the importance of a gender and equity lens in policy and decision-making around AMR. She outlined GEAR up’s successes in mainstreaming gender and equity questions and considerations in the most recent Ugandan National Action Plan on AMR and emphasised opportunities to take this approach across Fleming Fund country grantees.

Participants identified gender and equity dimensions in their areas of work across lab, surveillance, policy and practitioners’ perspectives and reiterated the fact that policy makers and practitioners need to work together on equity issues. We answer some of the questions that we received from participants below:

How do gender and equity issues apply to AMR in disasters or emergency response?

In disaster and emergency response contexts, many of the complex social processes of inequity that influence exposure, access to treatment and antibiotic use are particularly exaggerated. For example, access to health systems and to safe water and sanitation are often constrained in disaster contexts, which can create particular exposure for those most likely to be responsible for collecting water or those working as frontline health workers. Women and gender minorities are often more at risk of sexual and gender-based violence in disaster contexts, which affects exposure to and spread of sexually transmitted infections, including resistant infections. Disaster contexts can also lead to significant refugee populations, and those living in refugee camps often have low access to healthcare and high risk of infection due to living conditions.

How is GEAR up inputting to countries’ AMR National Action Plans?

GEAR up seeks to inform countries’ National Action Plans on equity and gender issues that relate to AMR and policy making. This involves engaging with stakeholders to raise awareness around equity and gender dimensions of AMR, reviewing existing National Action Plans or AMR strategies for engagement with equity and gender issues, and building on windows of opportunity to incorporate equity considerations and policies or actions that strive for equity within the AMR space. If you have identified an opportunity to input into the development of a National Action Plan of strategy in your country, please do get in touch.