This report maps and synthesises social and behavioural science studies on mpox in sub-Saharan Africa from 2017 until December 2025.
SSHAP learning note: Building a localised approach
This learning note shares insights, experiences and lessons from SSHAP’s approach to the localisation of its operational responses in sub-Saharan Africa.
Rapid evidence synthesis: Mpox community protection
This note presents a rapid synthesis of evidence related to community protection in countries affected by the mpox clade 1b outbreak.
Synthesising evidence related to community protection for mpox
Medline, Africa Journals Online and Global Index Medicus were searched. IFRC, UNICEF and the World Health Organization (WHO) provided social listening reports, rapid qualitative assessments (RQAs), volunteer perception surveys and quantitative surveys. Briefs and meeting reports by SSHAP were also included, and rapid consultations were held with specialists and programme staff working on the mpox response. A meeting on social and behavioural research for a community-centred public health response to mpox was held in Kinshasa, the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), in November 2024, with the WHO, Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, Global Health EDCTP3 and Elrha. The meeting report was consulted for member state updates, existing knowledge and evidence gaps,
Meeting report: The impact of global aid funding cuts on people and programmes in South Sudan
Report of a roundtable with government actors, academics, development partners and journalists in South Sudan on the sweeping impacts on people and programmes of aid cuts and multiple, intersecting crises.
Key considerations: Home-based care for mpox in Central and East Africa
This brief outlines key considerations on health system requirements for safe and inclusive home-based care for mpox.
Questions bank for healthcare workers during infectious disease outbreaks
This question bank is a menu of qualitative questions related to healthcare workers’ knowledge, perceptions and practices during infectious disease outbreaks.
Climate change question bank part 2
This resource is a menu of qualitative questions related to socio-behavioural factors and drought response.
Climate change question bank part 1
This resource is intended to help responders determine organisational priorities and needs to develop a localised preparedness and response strategy for the multi-hazard impacts of El Niño and other relevant climatic events (e.g., drought, flooding, cyclones).
Mpox response in urban informal settlements
This brief highlights key issues and good practices that can be carried into the design and delivery of mpox response activities in urban informal settlements.
Introducing experimental vaccines during health emergencies
This brief provides an overview of the experimental stages of vaccine development during a disease outbreak and highlights key considerations at each stage from a social science perspective.
Supporting the mpox response for people with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and/or gender expression in contexts where their rights are restricted
This brief provides a socio-behavioural analysis of the vulnerabilities, risks and operational key considerations for working with people with diverse sexual orientation, gender identity and/or expression in the mpox response.
Mpox in the Busia-Malaba border region linking Uganda and Kenya
This brief summarises how mpox is perceived and managed in the Busia-Malaba border region that links eastern Uganda and western Kenya.
Remote response to Ebola outbreak in DRC
The Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform is supporting UNICEF, WHO, IFRC and other partners in the Democratic Republic of Congo to respond to the Ebola outbreak in Equateur Province. The Platform has four key streams of action: 1) Rapid briefs – a series of rapid operational briefs are being produced. These focus on key socio-cultural considerations regarding i) context and local specifics that may influence transmission and response; and ii) key themes that we can predict will be significant to the outbreak (e.g. local burial practices, health seeking behaviours etc). 2) Tools – a tools question bank is being produced that will include key questions clustered around a series of themes including: health beliefs and health-seeking behaviour; local burial practices; knowledge and perceptions of Ebola; knowledge and perceptions of the Ebola vaccine; trusted communication channels; and key influencers. 3) Technical expertise and remote analysis –
Cross-border dynamics between Burundi and Tanzania in the context of viral haemorrhagic fever outbreaks, 2025
This brief summarises key considerations regarding cross-border dynamics between Burundi and Tanzania in the context of viral haemorrhagic fever (VHF) outbreaks in Tanzania and Uganda.
Using social and behavioural science to inform the use of vaccines during health emergencies
This brief synthesises social and behavioural science research on the use of vaccines during health emergencies in sub-Saharan Africa, including experimental vaccines undergoing clinical trials.
Hiding in plain sight: IDP’s protection strategies after closing Juba’s protection of civilian sites
This article examines how former Protection of Civilian site (PoCs) residents are staying safe and protecting themselves after the United Nations Mission in South Sudan’s (UNMISS) handing over of the PoCs to the Revitalised-Transitional Government of National Unity (R-TGoNU).
Sing safety: understanding South Sudanese protection strategies through song
This article argues that paying attention to music can help humanitarians understand self-protection strategies, especially as music can create space for discussion even about emotive or political topics that cannot be verbalised in other ways.
Safety among displaced South Sudanese in Khartoum: the role of Christian faith communities
Christianity occupies an integral part of South Sudanese journeys through wars and displacement. This article explores the role of Christian faith communities in providing protection during South Sudanese displacement in Khartoum.
Seeking safety: Identifying protection gaps for artists in South Sudan
Protection of artists during times of conflict has no specific framework in international humanitarian law. However, cultural sites, artefacts and institutions are protected. This article contributes empirical evidence from South Sudan to reveal how artists experience the protection gap and how they become informal protection stakeholders.
Negotiating faith in exile: learning from displacements from and into Arua, North West Uganda
Humanitarians have recently championed faith actors as valuable resources in delivering humanitarian aid. This paper explores how faith has been entangled within the dynamics of two spatially connected crises: Ugandans fleeing post-Amin reprisals in the mid-1980s, and South Sudanese fleeing civil war from 2013.
Protection and containment: surviving COVID-19 in Palabek refugee settlement, Northern Uganda
Humanitarian assistance is framed around ‘protection’. Deciding whom to protect and against what is not straightforward, particularly during a pandemic. This article critically explores containment and protection by focusing on refugee self-protection in Uganda.
Community self-protection, public authority and the safety of strangers in Bor and Ler, South Sudan
Protection is not simply something done or delivered to people by states, humanitarian organisations and armed peacekeepers. We use interview data from communities in Bor and Ler, South Sudan, long affected by conflict, to show how attention to the relationship between public authority and the safety of strangers can reveal the skills, resources and conditions under which protection is successfully provided.
Humanitarian protection activities and the safety of strangers in the DRC, Syria and South Sudan
Many contemporary humanitarian organisations derive their legitimacy from their claims to protect civilians. Yet, what these organisations do in its name includes a diverse and contested range of activities that are often far from what global publics and affected populations understand as constituting protection. We review what three well-known humanitarian organisations publicly say they have done to protect strangers across three violent protracted crises.
The safety of strangers: the realities and politics of protecting civilians in times of war
Recent wars have brutally shown that civilians are not safe. This is despite high-level global commitments and multi-billion-dollar humanitarian spending to keep civilian strangers protected. The high civilian death tolls in recent armed conflicts are prompting new questions about how and if we can protect civilians in times of war, and what the real politics of such protection is. In this introduction, authors argue that it is essential to pay attention to civilians’ actual experiences of protection and their own strategies for staying safe.
Diagnosis, treatment, and management of mpox in urban informal settlements in southwestern Nigeria: an ethnographic approach
This paper, based on an ethnographic study in southwestern Nigeria, seeks to contribute to a more nuanced understanding of not only the health care access barriers, but the complex geographical, economic, and sociocultural factors that shape how and when people seek care for mpox within the context of urban informal settlements.
Mpox and the men who have sex with men (MSM) community in Nigeria: Exploratory insights from MSM and persons providing healthcare services to them
This paper explores mpox awareness, knowledge, and experiences among men who have sex with men (MSM) in Lagos, Nigeria, to provides insights to improve Nigeria’s mpox response and inform similar public health efforts in Africa where MSM criminalisation complicates MSM community engagement.
Infrastructures of epidemic response: mpox and everyday repair work in southwestern Nigeria
This paper examines community-based surveillance and primary health care as intersecting infrastructures to draw learning from lived experiences of mpox and the response to the mpox outbreak in southwestern Nigeria during 2022-23.
Mapping community engagement tools for vaccination in LMIC settings
This resource, which maps and characterises community engagement tools used for vaccination in low and middle income settings, is the results of a study from the Pulse project.
Viral haemorrhagic fevers question bank
This Question Bank is relevant to outbreaks where person-to-person transmission has been identified as significant to an outbreak’s spread and where patient experiences must be understood for a community-centred response.
Rapid qualitative assessment training – 10 modules in English, French, Spanish and Portuguese
This training aims to contribute to more effective and community-centred responses by strengthening systems for the utilisation of community data in emergency response by ministries of health, government and partners.
Post-trauma impacts in conflict-affected communities in northern Nigeria
This Key Considerations brief compares the biomedical framing of post-traumatic stress disorder with the social science understanding of the drivers of and possible solutions for mental health impacts of trauma.
Addressing the kush epidemic in Sierra Leone
This Key Considerations brief contextualises and provides insight into an epidemic which is symptomatic of deeper, long-standing issues which require sustained and comprehensive solutions beyond immediate emergency measures.
Female genital mutilation among Sudanese displaced populations in Egypt
A Key Considerations brief considering the drivers and dynamics of FGM practices in the context of forced displacement to inform culturally sensitive strategies for FGM prevention and response.
Addressing the humanitarian needs of forced rural-to-city migrants in north-west Nigeria with a focus on mental health vulnerability
This Fellows Brief calls for action to address the needs of a hitherto underserved, internally displaced people.
Mutual aid lessons and experiences from Emergency Response Rooms in Sudan
A Key Considerations brief based on the first case study of the volunteer networks known as Emergency Response Rooms, conducted June to August 2024.
Humanitarian responses to famine and war in Sudan
This Key Considerations brief offers key information about the background to the civil war in Sudan, responses to the humanitarian crisis and reasons why relief has been inadequate, setting out opportunities to push against the obstacles or constraints to relief.
