Doctoral Dissertation Research: An Anthropological Exploration of Antibiotic Use

世界卫生组织的报告称，抗生素的过度使用(以及相应的抗菌素耐药性的增加)是当代全球健康面临的最大挑战之一，但人类学关于抗生素的通用用法和含义的学术研究仍然有限。关于东非抗生素的研究尤其倾向于假设过度使用是由政治、经济和法律条件驱动的，并建议更严格的监管是最佳干预措施。这项研究将通过详细说明坦桑尼亚公众使用抗生素的原因和方式，为这一至关重要的问题提供及时的贡献，因为在坦桑尼亚，强大的抗生素随时可以在柜台上获得。PIS将对抗生素的多种用途和含义进行人种学研究，以努力理解并最终证明药物使用的逻辑。这个项目的目标是：1)了解人们在哪里以及如何获得抗生素知识，并追踪他们讲述的关于抗生素用途和特征的叙述；2)了解不同群体如何将效力归因于某些抗生素，以及他们想象这些效力的来源是什么；3)分析抗生素的使用和含义是如何在与其他治疗方案的对话中形成的；以及4)深入了解药物使用如何有助于对健康、身体和社会的特定理解，这反过来又会影响对药物使用的选择。这项研究将基于访谈、疾病和治疗的个人病史，以及与该领域的抗生素使用者和经销商(药剂师、医生、普通使用者)的密切观察和接触。一旦传播，这项研究将有助于更好地了解坦桑尼亚的抗生素使用情况，并帮助希望影响或了解人们如何使用抗生素的政策制定者和医生。该项目还将支持一位有前途的学者的科学培训。

The World Health Organization reports that the overuse of antibiotics (and the corresponding rise of antimicrobial resistance) is one of the greatest contemporary challenges to global health, but anthropological scholarship about the vernacular uses and meanings of antibiotics remains limited. Studies on antibiotics in East Africa in particular tend to assume that overuse is driven by political-economic and legal conditions, and suggest stricter regulations as the best intervention. This study will provide a timely contribution to this critically important issue by detailing why and how antibiotics are used by the public in Tanzania, where powerful antibiotics are readily available over-the-counter. The PIs will conduct ethnographic research on the multiple uses and meanings of antibiotics in an effort to understand and eventually demonstrate the logics of drug use. The objectives of this project are: 1) to learn where and how people acquire their knowledge of antibiotics, and to trace the narratives they tell about the uses and characteristics of them; 2) to understand how different groups of people attribute potency to certain antibiotics, and what they imagine the sources of these potencies to be; 3) to analyze how antibiotic uses and meanings take shape in dialogue with other treatment regimes; and 4) to gain insight into how drug use contributes to particular understandings of health, the body, and society, which in turn influence choices about drug use. The research will be based on interviews, personal histories of disease and treatment, and close observation and engagement with antibiotics users and distributors in the field (pharmacists, doctors, ordinary users). Once disseminated, this study will contribute to a better understanding of antibiotic use in Tanzania, and help policy makers and medical practitioners who want to influence or understand how people use antibiotics. This project will also support the scientific training of a promising scholar.