Evaluating the effectiveness of public health interventions is especially important in resource-limited settings to support the government in making informed decisions in the context of information scarcity and budget shortage.

Huong’s work involves community and hospital-based studies on antimicrobial use and antimicrobial resistance (AMR), assessing factors that can be addressed to control the emergence and spread of resistance and preserve the efficacy of antibiotics, and identifying interventions that are responsive to the needs of the target populations in Vietnam and local region.

A major theme of her work focuses on antimicrobial stewardship, one of the key action areas in the global and national action plans to combat AMR. Our team established a multi-method participatory approach to antimicrobial stewardship: baseline qualitative assessments, reinforcing information sharing and discussions through stakeholder meetings and networks, collaborations with local and international partners in developing and evaluating multi-faceted interventions and performing cost-effectiveness analysis of these interventions to inform policy and actions.

Research study under Wellcome International Training Fellowship

Uncontrolled use of antibiotic drugs to treat or prevent human infections with bacteria causes these bacteria to become resistant to antibiotics, particularly in countries with limited resources. Actions are required to reduce and restrict (unnecessary) antibiotic use.

This study will assess the impact of interventions that aim to improve antibiotic use in hospitals to determine if these are good value for money. As a part of the study, she will collect data on the amount of antibiotic use, the number of patients who died, bacteria resistance to important antibiotics, and the costs of these interventions in three hospitals in Vietnam.

In addition, she will use the existing data from the national resistance surveillance programme to understand the patterns of antibiotic use and resistance and how these data can help to plan interventions in hospitals. The findings are useful to support governments in making decisions on how best to address the antibiotic resistance problem in resource-limited countries.