The Social Science in Humanitarian Action Platform (SSHAP), a partnership between the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), Anthrologica and the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, has recently received two awards. A recent brief won the Society for Medical Anthropology’s Anthropological Responses to Health Emergencies (ARHE) 2022 Policy Brief Award and Juliet Bedford, a Co-Investigator of SSHAP and Executive Director of Anthrologica, won the Marsh Award for Anthropology in the World.
The ARHE 2022 Policy Brief Award recognises outstanding application of anthropological insights to policies around health emergencies. The aim of the award is to encourage and acknowledge the contributions of anthropologists by providing the humanistic side of policy recommendations for responding to health emergencies. The winning briefing from SSHAP was ‘COVID-19 Vaccines and (Dis)Trust among Minoritised Youth in Ealing, London, United Kingdom’ by Megan Schmidt-Sane (SSHAP), Tabitha Hrynick (SSHAP), Jillian Schulte (Case Western Reserve University), Charlie Forgacz-Cooper (Youth Advisory Board), and Santiago Ripoll (SSHAP). The brief draws on in-depth interviews and focus groups with 62 youth across Ealing to contextualise youth perspectives of COVID-19 vaccination and highlight themes of trust/distrust. Building on previous work on vaccine equity in Ealing, it presents key considerations for addressing youth distrust regarding the COVID-19 vaccine. Reflecting on the achievement, co-author and Research Fellow at IDS, Megan Schmidt-Sane states:
“We are grateful to have received this award, which recognises our team’s work and engagement with community, the voluntary and community sectors, and the local council in Ealing. It also showcases the value of an anthropological approach and taking a holistic lens to complex issues in our world today.”
The second award, from the Royal Anthropological Institute and Marsh Charitable Trust recognises an outstanding individual based outside academia who has applied anthropology or anthropological ideas in order to have a positive influence on, or help us better understand, the problems facing our world today. In reflecting on the achievements of Juliet Bedford, her work completed through SSHAP was recognised as a key element of responses to the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Zika virus and other health emergencies.
SSHAP continues to produce outputs which integrate social science and anthropological perspectives to health and humanitarian crises, which can be accessed through the programme’s resource library.
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