A space to explore, share and shape the issues facing social and behavioral scientists
Robert Dingwall argues that the World health Organization has become a top-down, command-and-control approach, based on a narrow scientific base and the preferences, or prejudices, of a few major donors, that has failed to deliver in times of crisis.
An open letter from World Health Organization experts urges another WHO body to use use social and behavioral science “to draft and negotiate a WHO convention, agreement or other international instrument on pandemic prevention, preparedness and response.”
Six months into this pandemic, we have learned that it is not going to wipe out human life on this planet. This means, argues Robert Dingwall, that it is time for a public policy reset.
Another disease in the tropics has the World Health Organisation in a lather, and again biomedicine’s response will not be all that useful in the short term. Social science can help now to address the underlying problems that help the Zika virus to spread — if policymakers will listen.
A new report from the World Health Organization on the response to the African Ebola outbreak backs up what our Robert Dingwall has been writing all along — by downplaying social science lives have been lost. The question now is whether a new WHO can improve.
The Ebola outbreak in West Africa reminds us of a key lesson in public health, notes Robert Dingwall: Biomedical solutions will always come late, while social science-based interventions can break the cycle much sooner.
