Tag Archives: epidemics

• Pandemic Flu Controversies

  How can a better understanding of the social, political, institutional and policy dimensions of pandemic control and preparedness planning help us deal with new outbreak controversies, such as the new H7N9 avian flu in China? Useful resources about pandemic influenza, including material from the STEPS Centre and Sussex University Centre for Global Health Policy’s recent Pandemic Flu Controversies workshop which discussed lessons, [...]

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• From Framings to Pathways: Bats and the Construction of Risk in Ghana

  This project takes an historical perspective on how framings shift over time and how this has informed policy change and pathways of response.  It also examines how ‘at risk’ identities are co-constructed through policy and research, and how this in turn may impact back on community and other identities. Key Research Questions: How have different actors’ [...]

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• Swine flu: what went wrong?

  Although the H1N1 ‘swine flu’ pandemic of 2009-10 was less severe than anticipated, the event revealed weaknesses in the world’s current configuration of planning for and responding to pandemic influenza, according to new research outlined in this briefing. Science, public health policy makers and people worldwide were confounded by the uncertainty, complexity and politics inherent [...]

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• To Pandemic or Not? Reconfiguring Global Responses to Influenza

  Examining the political economy of knowledge in responses to the 2009-10 influenza pandemic, To Pandemic or Not? Reconfiguring Global Responses to Influenza argues that globally, and in many individual nations, techno-scientific narratives constructed by bio-medical actor networks failed to correspond with the more variegated narratives of multifarious global publics, and so struggled to recruit support and maintain [...]

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• Pandemic Influenza: Research themes

    Outbreak policy narratives Public and policy reactions to H5N1 and H1N1 have been guided by the prospect of the devastating impacts of an outbreak. ‘Outbreak narratives’ have guided policymaking, with the building of drug stockpiles, the development of contingency plans and so on. Draconian measures for containment have often been devised, including restrictions on [...]

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• Pandemic Influenza: Resources

  Books Scoones, I. (ed.) (2010)  Avian Influenza: Science, Policy and Politics, London: Earthscan Routledge. Elbe, S. (2010) Security and Global Health, Polity Press Dry, S. and Leach, M. (eds.) (2010) Epidemics: Science, Governance and Social Justice, London: Earthscan: Routledge. (Includes Scoones, I.,  Fighting the flu: Risk, uncertainty and surveillance) Projects: Pharmaceuticals and Security: The Role [...]

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• Zoonoses: animal-to-human diseases

  Zoonoses are diseases that can be transmitted from animals to humans. The STEPS Centre has a range of research projects and resources which explore zoonoses, offering new theory as well as practical solutions. Our work often considers the landscape of politics, policy processes and international responses to pandemics and resources cover diseases including avian influenza, swine influenza, Ebola, Lassa Fever, Henipavirus Infection, Rift Valley [...]

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• Avian Influenza: Science, Policy and Politics

  This book, edited by Ian Scoones, explores how virus genetics, ecology and epidemiology intersect with economic, political and policy processes in a variety of places – from Bangkok to Washington, to Jakarta, Cairo, Rome and London. Over the past decade, substantial resources have been spent on tackling avian influenza and building a global capacity for [...]

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