Keyword: Low-Resource Settings

ABSTRACT: Antimicrobial resistance (AMR) is one of the most pressing global public health threats, compromising the effectiveness of antimicrobial therapies and increasing the burden of infectious diseases worldwide. Although AMR affects all populations, its impacts are disproportionately concentrated in resource-limited settings where poverty, inadequate healthcare infrastructure, poor sanitation, and limited access to quality medicines increase vulnerability to resistant infections. This narrative review examines the relationship between AMR and health equity, highlighting how social and structural determinants shape exposure, susceptibility, and health outcomes among disadvantaged populations. Literature published between 2015 and 2026 was identified through searches of PubMed, Scopus, Web of Science, and Google Scholar and synthesized using a thematic narrative approach. The review identifies poverty, inadequate water, sanitation and hygiene infrastructure, low health literacy, weak healthcare systems, limited diagnostic capacity, workforce shortages, and insufficient surveillance systems as major contributors to AMR vulnerability. Women, children, rural populations, refugees, migrants, and displaced communities experience disproportionate burdens due to overlapping social and healthcare disadvantages. A One Health perspective further demonstrates how human, animal, and environmental factors interact to accelerate resistance transmission. Addressing AMR requires equity-centered strategies that strengthen primary healthcare, improve access to diagnostics and treatment, enhance surveillance systems, expand water and sanitation infrastructure, and promote community engagement. AMR is not merely a biological phenomenon but a manifestation of broader social and structural inequities requiring integrated and sustainable public health responses.