Catherine Will is a Reader in the Sociology of Science and Technology (Sociology) at the University of Sussex. Catherine was recently awarded a Wellcome Trust investigator award for work on AMR and inequality in the UK and the US, on the project ‘Marginalisation and the Microbe: How to mobilise around antimicrobial resistance without increasing social inequalities’.

‘Marginalisation and the Microbe: How to mobilise around antimicrobial resistance without increasing social inequalities’:

Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is increasingly appearing in common bacterial infections. Responses include more careful use of antibiotics, but attempts to preserve their effectiveness could exacerbate existing health inequalities. In the short term the unintended victims could be people already disadvantaged in relation to healthcare systems. This research will compare past, present and evolving responses to infections in sexual and reproductive health, including those more likely to affect groups made marginal due to a combination of age, gender, sexuality, ethnicity, race, poverty and class. The research offers a novel discussion of responses to AMR in scientific and clinical practice in the UK and US, contrasting more and less publicly visible infections. Careful comparisons of action by policy makers, scientists, clinical professionals – and patients where relevant – will give a critical edge to analysis of political and social factors shaping this field, and different ways of responding to inequality and stigma.

Further information on Catherine is available on her institutional profile.

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