Integrating the Social Sciences in Epidemic Preparedness and Response: A Strategic Framework to Strengthen Capacities and Improve Global Health Security

"Now is the time for social scientists, funders, global agencies, allied disciplines, and national governments to strategically build core capacities and competencies, and move epidemic social science from the margins to the mainstream. In so doing, social science will challenge the existing status quo."

Infectious disease epidemics are increasingly conceived of as events that require socio-political awareness, responses, and solutions. This intensified focus can be seen, for example, in the February 2020 establishment of a COVID-19 Research Roadmap Social Science Working Group by the World Health Organization (WHO). However, various institutional, cultural, and political gaps prevent social science insights on issues such as (mis) trust, (mis/dis) information, the acceptability of laws and mandates, human behaviour and social norms, and stigma and discrimination from being mainstreamed into epidemic response. Based on data collected prior to the COVID-19 pandemic but applicable to it, this paper analyses the knowledge, infrastructure, and funding gaps that experts in the field contend hinder the full integration of the social sciences in epidemic preparedness and response. It presents a strategic framework for addressing these gaps.

The researchers describe the role of social science in this context as "a holistic engagement with social, cultural, historical, economic and political factors as they affect, and are affected by, disease outbreaks, epidemics and pandemics, with a particular focus on the way people (individuals, families, communities, social networks, healthcare workers, local government, humanitarian responders and others) experience, engage and negotiate their circumstances. In this sense,...social science [is] a means to support the humanization of epidemic response and generate a strong ethical alliance with local populations and health systems." Social sciences' services might be brought to bear not only on community engagement (CE), social and behavioural change communication (SBCC), risk communication (RC), social mobilisation, and psycho-social support but also increasingly on other areas across national public health, humanitarian cluster, and international systems and partnerships for coordinated alert and responses (e.g., vaccines).

This research is grounded in a qualitative study design commissioned for the 2019 Funders' Forum on Social Science Research for Infectious Disease, convened by the GloPID-R (Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness) network. Between February and May 2019, the researchers facilitated expert deliberations and conducted 75 key informant interviews, a consultation with 20 social scientists from Africa, Asia, and Europe, 2 focus groups, and a literature review of 128 articles. They also analysed 56 interviews from the Ebola 100 project, collected just after the West African Ebola epidemic. An initial list of 600 gaps and 220 recommendations emerged that was ultimately consolidated into 3 overarching areas, which are detailed in the article:

1. Recommendations to improve core social science response capacities, including investments in: human resources within response agencies; the creation of social science data analysis capacities at field and global level; mechanisms for operationalising knowledge; and a set of rapid deployment infrastructures;
2. Recommendations to strengthen applied and basic social sciences, including the need to: better define the social science agenda and core competencies; support innovative interdisciplinary science; make concerted investments in developing field-ready tools and building the evidence base; and develop codes of conduct; and
3. Recommendations for a supportive social science ecosystem, including: foundational investments in institutional development, especially in the global south; training and capacity building; awareness-raising activities with allied disciplines; knowledge-sharing platforms and networks (e.g., support for a community of practice); and funding and advocacy.

The discussions conducted as part of this research led to a "general feeling that the widespread adoption of social science techniques, and better integration of community knowledge and participation, will challenge the status quo of the existing humanitarian system, scientific and medical education and global and national governance regimes. In this sense, social science knowledge may also represent a challenge to the institutional status quo, because its analysis may identify these institutions themselves (and the response architecture and ethos) as part of the problem."

In conclusion, the researchers stress that "Social science should not be a parallel system, nor should it be 'siloed' into risk communication and community engagement. Rather, it should be integrated across existing systems and networks, and deploy interdisciplinary knowledge 'transversally' across all preparedness and response sectors and pillars....We believe this will make it [social science] more people-centric and responsive to the needs and challenges of diverse human communities in the twenty-first century - a century that is widely predicted to witness many more disruptive public health emergencies."