Researchers in Geography and Environment have teamed up with those in Engineering, Nursing and Microbiology to look at hand hygiene in hospitals and find new ways of mapping the spread of microbes around wards.
Picture: Using UV light, a nurse shows how simulated pathogens can spread around a ward through touch, during the Mapping Microbes experiment.
The research project – Mapping Microbes – has been funded by the University’s Network for AntiMicrobial Resistance and Infection Prevention (NAMRIP), via EPSRC’s Bridging the Gap grant. The collaboration shows innovative interdisciplinarity, working across faculties to address a multifaceted problem.
Antimicrobial resistance (superbugs becoming resistant to anitibiotics) will affect not just healthcare settings, but food, travel, farming and logistics.
One of the researchers, Paul Hurley explains:
“Projects like Mapping Microbes show just what bringing together knowledges and approaches from different disciplines can do. They can produce new discoveries and high quality outputs to inspire and engage broader societal action.”
Hand hygiene is one of the ways we can fight antimicrobial resistance (AMR), which is otherwise predicted by 2050 to kill as many people as cancer does today. The research is helping the team understand how healthcare workers and members of the public understand bacteria and the risks of transmission, and why we make some of the choices that we do.
The team have produced a short film, In Our Hands, in collaboration with film maker Joseph Turp and with a poem by children’s laureate, Michael Rosen. It uses experimental techniques to tell the story in a highly visual way, with an affirmative rather than instructive message.
The film was shown at Cheltenham Science Festival, as part of an interactive exhibit that played when visitors washed their hands – created in partnership with artists and with Salisbury manufacturers Wallgate Ltd.
