Antibiotic resistance is growing threat to public health threat that calls for urgent attention. However, creating campaigns to slow the emergence and spread of drug-resistant pathogens is challenging because the goal—antibiotic stewardship—encompasses multiple behaviors. This study provided a novel approach to audience segmentation for a multifaceted goal, by using a person-centered approach to identify profiles of US adults based on shared stewardship intentions. The latent class analysis identified three groups: Stewards, Stockers, and Demanders. The findings suggest campaigns with goals aimed at encouraging Stewards to follow through on their intentions, encouraging Stockers to dispose of their leftover antibiotics, and convincing Demanders to accept provider’s evidence-based judgment when a prescription for antibiotics is not indicated. Covariate analysis showed that people who held more inaccurate beliefs about what antibiotics can treat had higher odds of being Demanders and Stockers instead of Stewards. People with stronger health mavenism also had higher odds of being Stockers instead of Stewards. The covariate analysis provided theoretical insight into the strategies to pursue in campaigns targeting these three groups.

Extending the effectiveness of media-based campaigns into interpersonal networks has been a long concern for studies on persuasive messages, yet there is much to understand about why people attempt to persuade others to engage in health-related behaviors. This study investigated two alternative predictors of interpersonal persuasion: psychosocial determinants of behavior and homophily. We used the integrated model of behavior (IMB) to predict consumers’ intentions to purchase antibiotic-free meat, and extended the model to predict consumers’ intentions to encourage important others to do so. IMB variables predicted 44% of future purchasing intentions and 40% of future persuasion intentions. The findings support a homophily explanation for persuasion: people intend to persuade important others to do what they do. In addition, a person-centered analysis identified three audience segments based on antibiotic-resistance-related behaviors, cognitions, and experiences: Purchasers, Resisters, and New Adopters. The covariate analysis revealed that people who had more topic awareness of antibiotic use in animal husbandry, knowledge of someone with an antibiotic-resistant infection, and health mavenism were more likely to be Purchasers than Resisters or New Adopters. Anxiety, however, was highest among New Adopters and lowest among Resisters. Implications for theory and practice are discussed.

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