health crisis

Managing Health Crises After Ebola: Key Resources

Briefings

Rachel Thomas maps out the various institutions involved in the response and reviews communication challenges. The ongoing outbreak of Ebola in West Africa is the largest and longest since the virus was discovered four decades ago. Many organisations have been fighting this epidemic and grappling with social, cultural and political factors.
The need for social science and effective communications when responding to outbreaks is clearer than ever, as is the need to look critically for lessons that can guide future efforts. The resources below summarise the various institutions helping to fight the epidemic and highlight communication efforts.

Social Science Intelligence in the Global Ebola Response

Briefings

Sociocultural, economic, and political dimensions play a defining part in epidemics and pandemics. Anthropological involvement is increasingly recognised as important, however, integration of social sciences during global health crises remains, for the most part, delayed, inconsistent, and distant from the centre of decision making and resource prioritisation.
This problem is representative of much larger systemic barriers to academic and practitioner coordination in global health, humanitarian aid, and development practice. While anthropological insights on-the-ground can and do inform extraordinary containment and education efforts during medical humanitarian emergencies, they are all too often not scaled up.

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