Understanding contextual drivers of antibiotics use in rural Burkina Faso : insights from the social sciences
(2026)
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- (en) Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is frequently conceptualized as a biomedical phenomenon rooted in microbial adaptation. However, its dissemination is significantly influenced by human and systemic factors. In low-resource settings, a range of factors drive patterns of antibiotic use. Among these factors are structural vulnerabilities, including limited healthcare infrastructure, regulatory gaps and social expectations surrounding antibiotics. The field of social science research has played a pivotal role in elucidating these dynamics. The present doctoral study extends that effort by examining the contextual challenges of AMR Burkina Faso. The study goes beyond knowledge-deficit models by highlighting the socio-economic and systemic drivers of antibiotic access and use. Findings reveal a fragile health system marked by workforce shortages and frequent medicine stockouts, conditions that foster inappropriate antibiotic practices. Socio‑economic hardship further compounds these vulnerabilities, pushing households toward risky coping strategies such as self‑medication and reliance on informal providers. Environmental health challenges, including poor sanitation and limited access to clean water, are mong conditions under which people are faced with recurrent health conditions leading to the demand of antibiotics. This doctoral research argues that the utilization of antibiotics is not the primary issue that necessitates action, rather it is the health system's weakness, socio-economic and health environmental vulnerability, that sustains it. These underpinning drivers should be accorded precedence as action points in the context of AMR. Furthermore, the thesis contributes to the growing advocacy for multisectoral, context-sensitive strategies, while cautioning against reliance on global frameworks alone where countries fail to be compliant with, due to these roots causes. In the absence of such contextual prioritization, policy initiatives run the risk of misallocating resources to solutions that prove irrelevant and ineffective in combating AMR.
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Compaore, A. (2026). Understanding contextual drivers of antibiotics use in rural Burkina Faso : insights from the social sciences [Springer Nature Singapore]. In Disaster Resilience and Green Growth (pp. 621-637). https://hdl.handle.net/2078.5/277343