Monash Bioethics Review - Call for Papers for SI: Antimicrobial Resistance and Social Justice

Guest editor: 

• Tess Johnson, Ethox Centre, University of Oxford

Rationale and Description

This issue of Monash Bioethics Review explores antimicrobial resistance (AMR) as a threat to global health, and focuses particularly on the social justice implications of measures to prevent, reduce, and innovate against AMR. Whilst AMR poses harm across the globe, these harms are not uniformly distributed among populations, either temporally or geographically. This is one facet of considering justice in the AMR context. Furthermore, the risks of resistance developing are not uniformly distributed, implying that there may be AMR ‘hotspots’ (in time and space) for which it is more effective to intervene using stewardship, surveillance, and/or innovation. The burdens of these interventions ought to be considered in comparison to the benefits to the populations of hotspots compared to other populations. Where greater harms are borne by already disadvantaged populations, there is the potential for interventions against AMR to exacerbate existing social injustice. Stewardship, surveillance and innovation measures must be ethically evaluated through this lens.

Call for Papers

(In addition to rationale:) The guest editor welcomes submissions of original research articles of 2,000-7,000 words in length for this special issue. Articles should examine an ethical, legal or social question that is of ethical relevance to the topic of ‘Antimicrobial Resistance and Social Justice’. The articles can be empirical or normative, and transdisciplinary work is welcomed, where it has reference to the bioethical issues at stake.

Suggested topics include:

• How are the burdens of antimicrobial stewardship distributed under the current global action plan, and is this distribution fair?
• What additional challenges do LMICs face in implementing effective antimicrobial stewardship policies?
• Does surveillance against AMR place equitable burdens on all populations?
• (How) should marginalised communities be protected from bearing the brunt of antimicrobial stewardship programs focussed on changes in land use, informal access to antibiotics, and livestock farming?
• What constitutes fair access to antibiotics in settings where precarious work, poor health care and other structural factors render some ‘misuses’ of antibiotics more necessary?

For queries concerning possible submissions, please contact Tess Johnson at tess.johnson@ethox.ox.ac.uk (this opens in a new tab) . The deadline for submissions is 31/10/2023, with blinded manuscripts to be submitted via the Monash Bioethics Review editorial manager system here: https://www.editorialmanager.com/mobr/default2.aspx (this opens in a new tab)

All manuscripts should be indicated as submissions ‘to the special issue on ‘Antimicrobial Resistance and Social Justice’.