Members of SSHAP participated in the State-of-the-art Symposium in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo, in December 2025. This blog shares insights from the Symposium; considers the important of social and behavioural science and the existing evidence gaps; and lessons for global health security.
This report maps and synthesises social and behavioural science studies on mpox in sub-Saharan Africa from 2017 until December 2025.
As mpox continues to spread within the Democratic Republic of Congo and neighbouring countries, concern is growing over how best to respond to this second mpox Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC). Research in Nigeria during the first PHEIC points to the importance of involving affected community perspectives.
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.
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.
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.
This report summarises contributions from speakers and participants at a Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform (SSHAP)-organised online meeting to discuss mpox and discrimination issues in African settings, and operational responses to mpox that are contextually sensitive.
Contextual social, political and livelihood understandings, factors affecting care-seeking and challenges to vaccination rollout were among the on-the-ground realities relating to mpox spread that experts discussed.
On 27 April 2023, this webinar, featuring a panel of experts, will draw on new evidence from research on Mpox in Nigeria, as well as wider research on national, regional and global perspectives on epidemic preparedness and response, to explore questions such as how can global efforts interconnect more effectively with national and regional preparedness, taking account of varying priorities and perspectives? And what can be done to strengthen community-level efforts for outbreak detection and care provision?
This brief outlines the social considerations for responding to the recent outbreak of Monkeypox.
