Modelling the pandemic: attuning models to their contexts.
BMJ Glob Health
; 5(6)2020 06.
Article
in English
| MEDLINE | ID: covidwho-612112
ABSTRACT
The evidence produced in mathematical models plays a key role in shaping policy decisions in pandemics. A key question is therefore how well pandemic models relate to their implementation contexts. Drawing on the cases of Ebola and influenza, we map how sociological and anthropological research contributes in the modelling of pandemics to consider lessons for COVID-19. We show how models detach from their implementation contexts through their connections with global narratives of pandemic response, and how sociological and anthropological research can help to locate models differently. This potentiates multiple models of pandemic response attuned to their emerging situations in an iterative and adaptive science. We propose a more open approach to the modelling of pandemics which envisages the model as an intervention of deliberation in situations of evolving uncertainty. This challenges the 'business-as-usual' of evidence-based approaches in global health by accentuating all science, within and beyond pandemics, as 'emergent' and 'adaptive'.
Keywords
Full text:
Available
Collection:
International databases
Database:
MEDLINE
Main subject:
Pneumonia, Viral
/
Virus Diseases
/
Communicable Disease Control
/
Coronavirus Infections
/
Health Policy
/
Models, Biological
Type of study:
Observational study
Limits:
Humans
Language:
English
Year:
2020
Document Type:
Article
Affiliation country:
Bmjgh-2020-002914
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