CAPTURA Regional Workshop Proceedings (28-30 June 2022, Virtual).

In response to the global threat of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), the Capturing Data on Antimicrobial Resistance Patterns and Trends in Use in Regions of Asia (CAPTURA) project worked with microbiology laboratories, pharmacies, and local governments in South Asia and Southeast Asia to expand the volume of historical and current data available on AMR and antimicrobial use and to identify gaps in data and areas for quality improvement. When the CAPTURA project completed its country-level engagement in the first half of 2022, the consortium brought together local, regional, and global AMR stakeholders for a virtual regional workshop to review data outputs from the project and share strategies to inform national and regional efforts to combat AMR. This paper summarizes the main topics presented in the workshop held from 28 to 30 June 2022. As such, it highlights lessons learned from the project and strategies to fight AMR. Although CAPTURA has been invaluable to countries and information from the project is already being used, barriers concerning data quality and sharing remain. Regional-level initiatives should continue to build on the momentum gained from the CAPTURA project in supporting national-level surveillance and data quality improvements to inform critical decisions around planning, policies, and clinical care. Project findings have highlighted that issues with antimicrobial resistance and use are wide ranging across countries. Going forward, building on the current foundations and tailoring approaches to meet local needs and capacities will be fundamental in combatting AMR.

Risk communication as a core public health competence in infectious disease management: Development of the ECDC training curriculum and programme.

Risk communication has been identified as a core competence for guiding public health responses to infectious disease threats. The International Health Regulations (2005) call for all countries to build capacity and a comprehensive understanding of health risks before a public health emergency to allow systematic and coherent communication, response and management. Research studies indicate that while outbreak and crisis communication concepts and tools have long been on the agenda of public health officials, there is still a need to clarify and integrate risk communication concepts into more standardised practices and improve risk communication and health, particularly among disadvantaged populations. To address these challenges, the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC) convened a group of risk communication experts to review and integrate existing approaches and emerging concepts in the development of a training curriculum. This curriculum articulates a new approach in risk communication moving beyond information conveyance to knowledge- and relationship-building. In a pilot training this approach was reflected both in the topics addressed and in the methods applied. This article introduces the new conceptual approach to risk communication capacity building that emerged from this process, presents the pilot training approach developed, and shares the results of the course evaluation.

The principles and practices of nutrition advocacy: evidence, experience and the way forward for stunting reduction.

Advocacy represents an intervention into complex, dynamic and highly contextual socio-political systems, in which strategies and tactics must be adjusted on a continual basis in light of rapidly changing conditions, reactions from actors and feedback. For this reason, the practice of advocacy is often considered more art than science. However, capacities and practices for advocacy can be strengthened by sharing and analysing experiences in varying contexts, deriving general principles and learning to adapt these principles to new contexts. Nutrition is a particular context for advocacy, but to date, there has been little systematic analysis of experiences. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate and draw lessons from the practice of nutrition advocacy, especially in relation to stunting and complementary feeding, and suggest ways to strengthen capacities and practices in the future. The strategies and tactics, achievements and lessons learnt are described for three case studies: Uganda, Vietnam and Bangladesh. These cases, and experience from elsewhere, demonstrate that concerted, well-planned and well-implemented advocacy can bring significant achievements, even in short period of time. In light of the global and national attention being given to stunting reduction through the SUN (Scaling Up Nutrition) movement and other initiatives, there is now a need for much stronger investments in strategic and operational capacities for advocacy, including the human, organisational and financial resources for the advocacy and strategic communication themselves, as well as for monitoring and evaluation, supportive research and institutional capacity-building.