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The classification of novel disease events is central to public health action surrounding them. Drawing upon the sociology of scientific classification, this article examines the role and contestation of the World Health Organization’s Pandemic Alert Phases, as applied to the spread of 2009/10 H1N1 Influenza. The analysis of World Health Organization texts, including policy documents, public statements and epidemiological documents, has been utilized to examine the Organization’s actions and public narratives around the event of H1N1. Analytically, the functional role of such classificatory schemes and the social construction of scientific classifications are examined. It is argued that in understanding the World Health Organization’s 2009/10 application of the Pandemic Alert Phases, the critical limitation of the functions served by the classificatory scheme led to the breakdown of its construction. This case study highlights the importance of classification for the successful production of scientific ‘facts’, the constructed nature of classificatory systems and the potential for contestation that arises when such classifications do not adequately fulfil their functional roles. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Infectious disease threats are surrounded by scientific uncertainty. As a result, institutional structures can heavily determine the way in which such risks are managed. This is illustrated by the World Health Organisation's (WHO) management of the 2009 H1N1 pandemic. Given this, theories of path dependency, derived from the ‘new institutionalism’, are useful in analysing such events. This article examines theories of institutional and discursive path dependency in respect to the case study of the WHO's management of H1N1. It argues that the WHO's emphasis on the use of vaccines as a protective measure constitutes a path dependent reaction, based on the organisation's historical achievements with vaccines and its discourse surrounding vaccine use. Furthermore, in contrast to accounts which understand historical and institutional path dependency as exclusive theoretical models, the article argues that institutional and discursive path dependencies were mutually interacting in forming the WHO's response to H1N1. Finally, the article explores the question of institutional change within theories of path dependency. Here, using the case of the WHO, it is shown that the interference of an outside actor, the Council of Europe, caused the WHO to internally evaluate its actions, leading to institutional change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]