Communicating Antibiotic Resistance via Linguistic Agency Assignment

Area of Science:

• Public Health Communication
• Health Behavior
• Microbial Resistance

Background:

• Antibiotic resistance poses a significant global health threat, necessitating effective public communication strategies.
• Linguistic agency assignment, framing threats by who or what causes them, can influence perceptions of severity and self-efficacy.
• Previous research suggests agency framing is effective for health threat communication.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the effectiveness of linguistic agency assignment in communicating the threat of antibiotic resistance.
• To examine how framing antibiotic resistance as human-caused versus bacteria-caused impacts public perceptions and behavioral intentions.

Main Methods:

• A study involving 449 participants randomly assigned to eight experimental conditions.
• Conditions varied threat agency (bacteria vs. human), temporal agency (resistance vs. human), and imagery agency (antibiotics vs. taking antibiotics).
• Measured perceptions of threat, efficacy, fear appeals, behavioral intentions, and fact sheet persuasiveness.

Main Results:

• Perceived severity, susceptibility, response efficacy, and self-efficacy positively correlated with judicious antibiotic use intentions.
• Human agency assignment for threat (vs. bacteria agency) resulted in significantly higher behavioral intentions.
• Human temporal agency framing led to greater persuasiveness of educational materials compared to resistance framing.

Conclusions:

• Framing antibiotic resistance with human agency enhances perceived threat and efficacy, leading to increased intentions for judicious antibiotic use.
• Effective health communication about antibiotic resistance requires strategic linguistic framing to maximize public engagement and behavioral change.
• Future research should explore implications and limitations of agency assignment in public health messaging.