Antibiotic Citizen Engagement (ACE) project: Public understanding and behaviours in relation to antimicrobial resistance (AMR) in the UK

Welcome to our ACE project webpage.

This project is a pilot which aims to use Citizen Science to gather research information which can help us tackle antimicrobial resistance, which is a global public health threat. 

Citizen Science is research done with the help of the general public. Ordinary people volunteer their time and enthusiasm to help gather data- it has been used particularly effectively in environmental research, with projects such as the “Big Butterfly Count” providing valuable information on butterfly numbers and migration patterns. Without help from the public, many of these projects would be impossible because not enough data would be gathered, or because the amount of work needed is too big for one research team to do.

In our project, we are interest in understanding how people get antibiotics when they are needed, how they dispose of them when they aren’t needed anymore and what they know about them.

The project aims to recruit Citizen Scientists to ask friends, neighbours and other known and trusted groups to anonymously answer 9 survey questions related to this, to help us with our research.

The project is currently being piloted in schools.  For more information, or to find out how we can support this in your school, please contact head.ops@imperial.ac.uk

Links to some key project documents are below:

• ACE information booklet
• ACE instructions for downloading survey app or accessing survey online
• ACE paper version of survey