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Lay constructions of risk impact upon public health activities and underpin social reactions to experiences and understandings of infectious diseases. In this article, we explore the social construction of COVID-19 risk and responsibility by citizens of Jakarta and the Greater Jakarta Area, Indonesia. We draw upon digital diaries produced each week by 37 participants across a 5-week period from April to June 2020, a time of substantial policy flux in Indonesia. Key findings reflect the everyday construction of risk within the context of changing government restrictions regarding physical distancing. In the context of perceived confusion around government activity, the participants narrated individualised accounts of risk production, as they reflected upon the transmission of COVID-19. Our findings indicate the emergence of the concept of the 'ignorant imagined other' as underpinning how lay persons locate risks in unknowledgeable others and see themselves as socially protected through their own perceived knowledgeability of COVID-19. Our findings contribute to the literature on the social perception of infectious disease through the examination of the understudied context of urban Indonesia and by demonstrating the social location of risk in relation to a generalised imagined other, within a wider context of public health governance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study draws upon interviews of medical staff working in the city of Minamisoma, Japan, following the 2011 Triple Disaster. It investigates staff responses to the disruption of material resources as a consequence of the disaster and its management. The disruption of spaces, and the loss of oxygen supplies, food, and medications impacted upon staff experience and the ability of institutions to care for patients. This resulted in a restructuring of spaces and materials as workers made efforts to reconfigure and reestablish healthcare functions. This is one of the few qualitative studies which draws upon the experience and perspectives of health workers in understanding material disruption following disaster. This is particularly important since this case did not involve the breakdown of lifeline infrastructure, but rather, brought to attention the way everyday material objects shape social experience. In highlighting these effects, the paper makes the case for the social scientific investigation of the impact of disasters on healthcare, shedding light on an area of research currently dominated by disaster medicine. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Contemporary risks are often understood as fundamentally uncertain. This uncertain status can be mobilized within political debates surrounding risks. Such a challenge serves to destabilize scientific claims. The World Health Organization’s (WHO) management of the 2009/10 spread of the H1N1 virus became a site of one such contestation. Debate within the Council of Europe particularly served to criticize the action of the WHO. This resulted in a definitional and policy contestation between the two institutions. The WHO accounted for its actions through allusions to (seemingly stable) scientific facts, using epidemiological evidence of influenza and its management based on normal science. In contrast, in criticizing public expenditure and panic, the Council of Europe critics problematized the stability of the science employed by the WHO. This included fundamental aspects of scientific knowledge such as the measurability of morbidity and mortality caused by H1N1 and the effect of vaccination against influenza viruses. This criticism relied upon the ability to destabilize the WHO’s scientific knowledge, a process made possible through understandings of the uncertain nature of the science of risk (post-normal science). The case study illustrates that potential for previous-established and seemingly stable scientific facts to become destabilized and problematized during contestations of risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Within public health, and increasingly other areas of social policy, there are widespread calls to increase or improve the use of evidence for policy-making. Often these calls rest on an assumption that increased evidence utilisation will be a more efficient or effective means of achieving social goals. Yet a clear elucidation of what can be considered “good evidence” for policy is rarely articulated. Many of the current discussions of best practise in the health policy sector derive from the evidence-based medicine (EBM) movement, embracing the “hierarchy of evidence” that places experimental trials as pre-eminent in terms of methodological quality. However, a number of problems arise if these hierarchies are used to rank or prioritise policy relevance. Challenges in applying evidence hierarchies to policy questions arise from the fact that the EBM hierarchies rank evidence of intervention effect on a specified and limited number of outcomes. Previous authors have noted that evidence forms at the top of such hierarchies typically serve the needs and realities of clinical medicine, but not necessarily public policy. We build on past insights by applying three disciplinary perspectives from political science, the philosophy of science and the sociology of knowledge to illustrate the limitations of a single evidence hierarchy to guide health policy choices, while simultaneously providing new conceptualisations suited to achieve health sector goals. In doing so, we provide an alternative approach that re-frames “good” evidence for health policy as a question of appropriateness. Rather than adhering to a single hierarchy of evidence to judge what constitutes “good” evidence for policy, it is more useful to examine evidence through the lens ofappropriateness. The form of evidence, the determination of relevant categories and variables, and the weight given to any piece of evidence, must suit the policy needs at hand. A more robust and critical examination of relevant and appropriate evidence can ensure that the best possible evidence of various forms is used to achieve health policy goals. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

As well as a site of politics and public health action, the outbreak of Ebola in West Africa has been a focus of media representations. This paper examines print media narratives around border control in relation to Ebola in the UK, the USA and Australia from the start of the epidemic to May 2015. It shows that Ebola became mobilised as a frame through which domestic politics could be discussed. The disease was transformed from a problem for West Africa to a problem for the West. The context of West Africa and affected populations was homogenised and hidden. The focus of reporting centred upon domestic political actions and more local sources of threat. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Scientific uncertainty is fundamental to the management of contemporary global risks. In 2009, the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the start of the H1N1 Influenza Pandemic. This declaration signified the risk posed by the spread of the H1N1 virus, and in turn precipitated a range of actions by global public health actors. This article analyzes the WHO's public representation of risk and examines the centrality of scientific uncertainty in the case of H1N1. It argues that the WHO's risk narrative reflected the context of scientific uncertainty in which it was working. The WHO argued that it was attempting to remain faithful to the scientific evidence, and the uncertain nature of the threat. However, as a result, the WHO's public risk narrative was neither consistent nor socially robust, leading to the eventual contestation of the WHO's position by other global public health actors, most notably the Council of Europe. This illustrates both the significance of scientific uncertainty in the investigation of risk, and the difficulty for risk managing institutions in effectively acting in the face of this uncertainty. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Background: Worldwide, COVID-19 has exacerbated the vulnerability of migrants, impacting many facets of their lives. Nepalese make up one of the largest groups of migrants residing in Japan. Crises, such as the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic could disproportionately affect migrants from low- and middle-income countries like Nepal, widening health and economic inequalities. An in-depth, comprehensive assessment is needed to appraise the diverse problems they encounter. Drawing upon qualitative interviews, this study aimed to identify challenges faced by Nepalese migrants in Japan as a consequence of the COVID-19 pandemic and to discuss their needs to counter these challenges.Methods: This qualitative study employed an interpretivist approach to appraise the first-hand experience of Nepalese migrants living in Japan. Fourteen participants (8 males and 6 females, aged 21 to 47 years old) were recruited to participate in semi-structured in-depth telephone interviews (45-60 min) regarding: (a) their perceived current physical and mental health, (b) problems faced as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, and (c) perception of available and necessary support structures. Purposive and snowball sampling techniques were used to recruit the participants. Interviews were recorded, transcribed, and thematically analyzed.Results: Six themes were identified: 1) experiencing psychosomatic symptoms, 2) adoption of new healthy behaviors, 3) financial hardship, 4) family concerns, 5) reflections on discrimination and 6) reflections of existing support and expectations of support systems. The findings of our study illustrate the specific impact of COVID-19 among Nepalese migrants regarding their unstable employment conditions, perceived lack of social support, possible obligation to send money home, difficulty in accessing services due to the language barrier, and a lack of effective governmental support from Nepal. Pandemic-related adversity has negatively impacted migrants' mental well-being, exacerbating their vulnerability.Conclusions: Comprehensive and timely support should be provided to the vulnerable migrant population. Effective coordination among relevant parties in both countries, including the governments concerned, should be facilitated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]