Understanding the home as a source of infection of AMR bacteria carried by dust by exploring hygiene practices in different home environments in Ghana

粉尘兔项目将应用设计方法结合微生物分析来解决加纳的家庭感染问题，特别是那些具有抗菌素耐药性的家庭感染问题，从而减少感染并积极增加健康成果。在自然和建筑环境(如家庭、学校、医院等)中发现细菌。正在建立对药物的抵抗力--改变以保护自己免受抗生素的伤害。这意味着在不太遥远的将来，像轻微割伤感染这样简单的事情可能会危及生命。这是如此令人担忧，以至于抗菌素耐药性(AMR)现在被认为是一种全球健康危机，远远超过埃博拉等疾病的爆发，与气候变化一样真实。这一点在非洲的发展中国家更加明显和关键，例如在加纳，那里有大量的传染病死亡。细菌由病原体(坏细菌)和非病原体(好细菌)组成，通常散布在家里。家庭中的大多数表面都在一定程度上被细菌覆盖，但与厨房工作表面和家具等固定表面不同，灰尘更容易在家庭的不同部分移动，因此是人类接触细菌感染的主要途径。尽管有明确的证据表明家庭中存在微生物接触和感染传播，但由于难以进行详细的研究，在了解家庭环境方面投入的研究努力较少。虽然灰尘在家庭环境中的传播途径是众所周知的，但尚未研究的是如何在家庭中预防细菌感染，从而减少抵抗力。特别是在加纳等发展中国家，社会不平等意味着一系列不同质量和类型的家庭；再加上受许多经济、教育和宗教因素影响的家庭卫生水平往往较低，导致了传染病的传播。虽然有预防家庭环境感染的卫生准则，但这些准则针对的是卫生专业人员，而不是加纳的普通家庭。因此，迫切需要确定、了解和发展与加纳等发展中国家不同家庭环境、教育和文化背景有关的家庭卫生做法，以减少接触细菌病原体，从而减少对耐药性的接触。在这种情况下，灰尘兔项目旨在加深对家庭的认识，了解家庭是由灰尘发现和携带的细菌的感染源，对抗生素具有抗药性。这将通过探索加纳不同家庭环境的卫生做法来实现，最终目的是减少家庭环境中的细菌感染，从而减少AMR。了解家庭卫生习惯和与空气传播的AMR细菌的相互作用将是为加纳人口的不同部分以及非洲其他低收入和中等收入国家设计适当的教育/信息传播材料的第一步。灰尘兔，独一无二地结合了设计研究和微生物学，提供对家庭清洁的社会实践的知情评估，并提供减少家庭感染的新解决方案。项目组包括国际领先的设计研究机构想象力@Lancaster和野口纪念医学研究所--一个卓越的研究中心，也是加纳主要的生物医学研究机构，与加纳卫生局和卫生部一起提供证据，以实施政策变化。

The Dust Bunny project will apply design methods coupled with microbiological analyses to address issues of home-based infections in Ghana, particularly those carrying antimicrobial resistance, resulting in a reduction of infection and in positive increase of health outcomes.Bacteria found in the natural and built environment (e.g. homes, schools, hospitals, etc.) are building up a resistance to drugs -changing to protect themselves against antibiotics. What this means is that in the not-too-distant future, something as simple as a minor cut infection could become life-threatening. This is such a concern that antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is now considered a global health crisis, far surpassing outbreaks of diseases such as Ebola and as real as climate change. This is even more evident and critical in developing countries in Africa, such as in Ghana, where there are a great number of deaths from infectious diseases. Bacteria are made up of pathogens (bad germs) and non-pathogens (good germs) and are generally scattered across the home. Most surfaces in the home are covered to a certain degree with bacteria, but unlike fixed surfaces such as kitchen work surfaces and furniture, dust can move more easily around different parts of the home and therefore presents a major route for human exposure to bacterial infections. Despite being clear evidence for microbial exposure and infection transmission within the home, there has been less research effort invested in understanding the home environment, due to difficulty of conducting detailed studies. Although the transmission routes by dust in the home environment are well known, what has not been studied is how to prevent bacterial infection at home and thereby reduce resistance.Particularly in developing countries, such as Ghana, social inequalities mean a range of different quality and types of homes; this combined with often poor levels of domestic hygiene that is influenced by a number of economic, educational and religion factors, contributes to the spread of infectious diseases. Although there are hygiene guidelines available for preventing infection in the home environment, these are targeted at hygiene professionals and do not reach the everyday household in Ghana. There is therefore a much-required and unmet need to identify, understand and develop domestic hygiene practices that are relevant to different home environments, educational and cultural backgrounds in developing countries, such as in Ghana, in order to reduce exposure to bacteria pathogens and thereby exposure to resistance forms.Within this context, the Dust Bunny project aims at developing an understanding of the home as a source of infection of bacteria, resistant to antibiotics, found and carried by dust. This will be done by exploring hygiene practices across different home environments in Ghana, with the ultimate aim to reduce bacterial infection in the home environment thereby reducing AMR. Understanding the hygiene practices in the household and interactions with airborne AMR bacteria will serve as a first step to designing appropriate education/information dissemination materials for various sections of the Ghanaian population as well as other low- and middle-income countries in Africa. Dust Bunny, uniquely combines design research and microbiology to provide an informed assessment of societal practices in domestic cleanliness and novel solution to reduce infections in the home. The project team includes Imagination@Lancaster -an internationally leading research institution in design research- and the Noguchi Memorial Institute for Medical Research -a research centre of excellence and the prime biomedical research institution in Ghana, involved with the Ghana Health Service and Ministry of Health in providing the evidence to effect policy changes.