If you’re working within the humanitarian system, the following responses to questions frequently asked of social scientists during emergencies can be helpful to foster an understanding and appreciation of the rationale for social scientists’ work:

Question: “I don’t have time to read a 20-plus page report. You have five minutes to tell me what I need to know and how I need to make it happen.”

Answer: Start by giving specific and concise details on data of direct relevance to the person you’re speaking with. This is your ‘hook’ to get a colleague interested in your work and to demonstrate your knowledge of the humanitarian system, its role and its responders. You could say something like: “I have [X] key insights I want to share with you right now. I think [your organisation/ sector] is best placed to action these findings because [your mission is to…/ you have access to…] and I think you can do this by taking [these actions]. I can do a quick presentation about this to your technical working group/cluster meeting. I can also put this information into a one-page brief and share it with you today. Can you share your contact information?”

Q. “I like seeing a nice graph that shows the big picture of what the situation is. Social scientists use too many words.”

A. Text (not numbers) is often key data for social scientists, but you can make your presentations more concise and avoid text-heavy slides. Following these tips may be helpful.

Remember that most response actors are more interested in your findings and recommendations than your methodology. Even though you should be prepared to answer specific questions about your methodology, don’t spend a lot of time discussing it when allotted a short time to give a briefing. Why? Unless you are asked to go into more methodological details, focus most of your limited time with emergency responders presenting key findings and especially actionable recommendations for how those findings can be actioned, and by who.

Think about how your chosen dissemination strategy can answer the following and/or provide details on how responders can action them:

  • What recommendations can I offer to ensure that the findings I’m presenting are used to make operational and/or strategic decisions across all relevant response sectors? I would recommend reading ‘Integrating the social sciences in epidemic preparedness and response: A strategic framework to strengthen capacities and improve Global Health security’ for additional details on the importance of integrating social science insights ‘transversally’ across all response sectors and pillars.
  • How to ensure that this information goes back to affected communities (e.g., where data was collected) and how to ensure data is used to inform community-level actions?  I would recommend reading Bringing community perspectives to decision-making in the Ebola response in the Democratic Republic of Congo for a relevant example of how community insights can guide local action.
  • How to track the information used to ensure that it effectively contributes to operational and strategic priorities. I would recommend reviewing the MONITO tool from Integrated Outbreak Analytics for an example of how to track the implementation of co-developed (i.e., involving multiple emergency partners) response actions.

Communicate clearly what response actors need to know to alleviate suffering and save lives. Further, social scientists have tools in other mediums at their disposal. For example, PhotoVoice is a methodology that can provide a quick and clear picture of the situation (pun intended).

Advice for emerging social scientists

It will be important to understand the humanitarian and emergency response systems and its actors (including in what fora they regularly meet and when) and come prepared to give regular updates and briefings on your work. Work through organisations that have a seat at the emergency response ‘coordination’ table. Go to their meetings.

Share your key findings as often as possible. Ask for their feedback in co-creating evidence-based recommendations and have a specific ‘ask’ for the most appropriate actors to action those recommendations. It can be helpful to label your preliminary findings as draft documents for those actors who have more formal mechanisms in place for clearing evidentiary reports. The point is to get information to those who need it as quickly as possible for rapid, evidence-based action.

If you want your findings to be used, you need to adapt to whatever ways are needed to fit the circumstances of the emergency actors you are working with. Respect their time and appreciate that they are juggling many different needs and requests. Given the type of localised, in-depth data you will most likely be providing, you may also be well placed to suggest additional partners, e.g., local nongovernmental organisations and community-based organisations) who should be invited to participate in coordination mechanisms.

Responses such as those above can help you to:

  1. Highlight the unique insights that social science evidence gives about the needs and concerns of affected communities.
  2. Advocate for the inclusion of social scientists in emergency planning, ideally before a crisis begins.
  3. Challenge the myth that social science research is too slow or that it is not representative in an emergency setting.

Dr Ginger A. Johnson is a medical anthropologist with over 15 years of experience working within the UN system and with international humanitarian organisations. She co-founded the Rapid Research Evaluation and Appraisal Lab, co-developed the Collective Service’s Social Science for Emergency Preparedness and Response training package, and has recently co-facilitated Rapid Qualitative Assessment courses conducted on behalf of UN/INGOs in the East and Southern Africa for the Collective Service and SSHAP. You can listen to her recent podcast focusing on unpacking qualitative research in emergency response recorded by the Qualitative Applied Health Research Centre at King’s College London.

  • Do you have any additional tips to share based on your work and experience? Do you need support in undertaking rapid social science in emergencies? If so, please reach out to Annie Lowden (a.lowden[@]ids.ac.uk) or Juliet Bedford (julietbedford[@]anthrologica.com).