Preliminar results about 300 awareness-raising materials analysed in this review
Our mission at EU-JAMRAI 2 is to lead the fight against antimicrobial resistance (AMR) through joint and coordinated action across Europe. Communication strategies—such as national campaigns, educational materials, and community initiatives—play a vital role in shaping knowledge, attitudes, and behaviours and in promoting prudent antimicrobial use and infection prevention behaviours.
This review, promoted and coordinated by the communications area of EU-JAMRAI 2, intents to explore how the messages are disseminated, identifies best practices and pinpoints gaps and weaknesses to focus efforts on avoid it. For getting that, we have analysed 300 campaigns, messages, and communication materials created in EU countries from 2009 to 2025.
The majority of initiatives operate at national level, through websites channels and digital and hybrid media formats and most campaign combine public outreach with professional and institutional engagement”.
The analyse shows that the majority of iniciatives operate at national level, reflecting strong local engagement and country-level health communications actions. Furthemore, a smaller but significant proportion corresponds to international campaigns coordinates by global or inter-regional networks.
Websites are the most frequency communication channel, acting as primary hub for information dissemination, educational content and campaigns visibility. Social media ranks second, higlighting its growing importance for real-time interaction, while traditional media channels still provide valuable visibility and reach in specific contexts.
The analysis shows that digital and hybrid media formats predominate as communication strategies and print formats continue to be widely used to diverse audience.
Align with contemporary communication practices, multimedia content increases their role as more dinamic and emotionally relevant awareness approaches. Participatory and experiential dissemination offers opportunities for further development, particularly for behavioural change and public empowerment.
Most campaigns combine public outreach with professional and institutional engagement, indicating a dual communication approach. General public and healthcare professionals predominate targeting efforts, representing the primary focus of awareness-raising communication at both national and EU levels.
The involvement of non-human health sectors – including veterinarians, farmers and environmental professionals - highlights the progressive integration of the One Health concept into awareness-raising practices across Europe.
Strengths, weaknesses, gaps, bias and lesson learned identified in communication materials
The review concludes than international iniciatives, such as the European Antibiotic Awareness Day (EAAD) and World Antimicrobial Awareness Week (WAAW), provide strong frameworks but rely on voluntary national uptake and contextual adaptation. In addition, national campaigns are vary widely in scope, focus and evaluation mechanisms.
Moreover, equity gaps persist, with under-representation of vulnerable group and limited linguistic or cultural adaptation and evidence on behavioural outomes remains scarce, as monitoring often focuses on reach than impact.
Call-to-action elements and dedicated websites or online portals materialize as the most important streghts in four regional cluster analysed: Northen Europe, Sourthen Europe, Western Europe and Central and Eastern Europe. Also, easy-to-locate materials and clear messaging establish strong points.
The absence of measurable outcomes or evaluation plans and limited accesibility emerge as most frequently reported weaknesses. Additional recurrent weak points, as the lack of traslation into other languages, limited feedback loop or limited reach or using to a single channel, appear thought awarnesses-raising materials analysed.
The lack of accesible formats for visually impaired users is the most frequently documented gaps. However, there are variety of gaps that appear in analysis of regional cluster, such as reporting on results or impact not found, funding details not disclosed or credibility limitations related to missing or unclear references. Also, single-language with focused national audience or feedback, or audience not visible are additional frequently noted issues.
The review have detected relevante bias on the awarnesses-raising materials. It materializes an absense of evaluation considerations, limited involvement of audience, barriers linked to digital access or language bias, indicating limitations in inclusive design and mutilingual reach.
Clear, concise key-message summaries to reduce misinterpretation is the most relevant lesson learned after analysing 300 awarnesses-raising materials about AMR, healthcare infections and handwashing. Moreover, campaign should create tailoring content to specific groups (por example, parents senior teens) to enhace relevante and clarity and a central campaign hub or website to improve consistency.
In conclusion, the review recommends promoting sustained and evidence-based communications strategies, reinforcing monitoring and evaluation to asses behavioural and social impact and advancing equity and accesibility.
At the same time, suggests that awarnesses-raising iniciatives encourage collaboration and knowledge exchange across Member States and integrate co-creation approaches involving patients, professional, and communities.
At last, proposes scale up best practices and leverage innovation through both digital tools and community-based activities.
