By: DC Health Systems Board
In the wake of recent epidemics, and amidst growing threats from emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases, building systems that can prepare and respond effectively is a vital imperative to safeguard the health and well-being of local, national and global populations.
Yet such systems cannot rely on bio-medical, public health and humanitarian science and action alone. The Ebola virus epidemic fundamentally underlined the importance of embedding social science expertise and local community knowledge into response strategies if they are to be appropriate, acceptable and therefore effective.
Join us as Melissa Leach, the Director of the Institute for Development Studies, walks through the kinds of architectures and capacities that could strengthen the social dimensions of epidemic preparedness and response, across activities from foresight, anticipation and contextual research to developing rapid response networks and strengthening trust in health systems. She will draw on the experiences of IDS under the R2HC-funded Ebola Response Anthropology Platform (ERAP), the Ebola: Lessons for Development initiative, and related work on the multiple drivers of zoonotic disease.
Discussants
- Lauren Sauer, Dept. of Emergency Medicine and Center for Refugee and Disaster Response, Johns Hopkins Univerisity
- Susan Shepler, School of International Service, American University
Moderator
- Shan Soe-Lin, Program Director at Results for Development Institute
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