Antimicrobial resistance in the risk society: a Danish study on how veterinarians and human medical doctors construct risk through blaming

Research output: Contribution to journalJournal articleResearchpeer-review

This article deals with risk and antimicrobial resistance (AMR). AMR is considered to be one of the major global public health threats in the twenty-first century. This article applies the ideas of Ulrich Beck and Mary Douglas about the relation between risk and blame to competing discourses about AMR. AMR is closely connected to the use of antimicrobials in livestock production and for preventing/treating human infection. Using qualitative interviews with professionals from the human medical sector and the agricultural sector in Denmark, the article shows how representatives from the two sectors frame and construct AMR risks by blaming each other. Our study shows how experts within the human medical and veterinarian fields construct their own risk assessments in relation to AMR by making claims that shift blame to the other sector. They create a distinction between ‘us’ and ‘them’ and a kind of ‘otherness’ that is used to identify risky behaviour and the overuse of antimicrobials.

Original languageEnglish
JournalHealth, Risk and Society
Volume26
Issue number1-2
Pages (from-to)75-92
ISSN1369-8575
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.

    Research areas

  • AMR, framing, medicine, risk, veterinarians

ID: 366541777