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Antibiotic Guardian

“Become an Antibiotic Guardian”

Online pledge campaign launched by Public Health England in September 2014, for European Antibiotic Awareness Day, asking health professionals and the public to choose a pledge (by group, e.g. primary care prescribers, pharmacists, adults) to use antibiotics better and become an "Antibiotic Guardian". It passed 10,000 pledges by November 2014 and about 46,000 by April 2017; most early pledgers were health professionals. Now run by the UK Health Security Agency.

Years
2014–now
Country
United Kingdom
Coined
Antibiotic Guardian
Topic
Infectious disease
Asks people to
StartStop
Strategy
Coined termSelf efficacy
Channel
Social (organic)Website
Audience
CliniciansGeneral public
Prescribers, pharmacists, nurses and other health professionals (69% of pledgers in the first 6 months), plus the public, farmers and educators.

Evidence

Self-reportedUnknown

Process evaluation of the first 6 months: 61% of pledgers female, 69% health professionals. Qualitative interviews with 22 pledgers (Kesten 2017): most could not recall their pledge unprompted; most felt they kept it, often by reinforcing what they already did; campaign visibility was limited and it struggled to reach people unaware of antimicrobial resistance. No prescribing outcome evaluation found.

Sponsor (who paid)

  • Public Health England (now UK Health Security Agency) Foreign government, creator

Credits (who made it)

Not recorded yet.

Executions (individual ads)

Related campaigns

Sources

  1. Kesten JM, Bhattacharya A, Ashiru-Oredope D, Gobin M, Audrey S. The Antibiotic Guardian campaign: a qualitative evaluation of an online pledge-based system. BMC Public Health 18:5 evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1186/s12889-017-4552-9 · PMID 28693462
  2. Newitt S et al. Expansion of the Antibiotic Guardian one health behavioural campaign across Europe: pilot phase. Eur J Public Health 28(3):437-439 evaluation · 2018 · DOI 10.1093/eurpub/ckx239 · PMID 29401283
  3. Chaintarli K et al. Impact of a United Kingdom-wide campaign to tackle antimicrobial resistance on self-reported knowledge and behaviour change. BMC Public Health 2016 evaluation · 2016 · DOI 10.1186/s12889-016-3057-2 · PMID 27177032
  4. Bhattacharya A et al. A process evaluation of the UK-wide Antibiotic Guardian campaign: developing engagement on antimicrobial resistance. J Public Health (Oxf) 2017 evaluation · 2017 · DOI 10.1093/pubmed/fdw059 · PMID 27451416
  5. Newitt S et al. Demographic, Knowledge and Impact Analysis of 57,627 Antibiotic Guardians Who Have Pledged to Contribute to Tackling Antimicrobial Resistance. Antibiotics (Basel) 2019 evaluation · 2019 · DOI 10.3390/antibiotics8010021 · PMID 30857297

Research notes

Clinician-facing (mixed audience) campaign. Discovered 2026-10-22 (clinician-campaigns pass). PMC5504645 fetched 2026-10-22 (launched September 2014 as part of EAAD; 10,000 pledges by 30 Nov 2014; ~46,000 by April 2017; 69% health professionals in first 6 months). antibioticguardian.com returned an empty page to scripted fetch. The public-facing PHE "Keep Antibiotics Working" campaign (2017-) is separate and consumer-facing, not filed. Second YouTube execution is from Northern Ireland's Public Health Agency channel. Taxonomy gap: no antimicrobial-resistance topic. Added 2026-10-22 (deferred lit-mining queue; DOI checked on Crossref and PMID via NCBI esummary 2026-10-22): Chaintarli 2016 (survey of 2,478 pledgers, 27.5% response: 63.4% said they always act on their pledge, 44.5% reported more AMR knowledge) and Bhattacharya 2017 (process evaluation, the source of the first-season figures in findings: 12,509 pledges from 47,158 site visits). Evidence unchanged (self-reported). Evaluation sources added 2026-10-22 (citation snowballing / helpline pass): Newitt 2019; evidence level and outcome unchanged.

Record cases/uk-antibiotic-guardian.json, updated 2026-10-22· Link to this campaign