Epidemic temporalities: A concise literature review

Polio, public health memories and temporal dissonance of re-emerging infectious diseases in the global north

Social science research on polio has been centred in the global south, where countries that remain endemic or vulnerable to outbreaks are located. However, closely-related strains of poliovirus were detected in the sewage systems of several New York State counties and London boroughs in 2022. These detections constituted the first encounters with polio in the United States and United Kingdom for a generation - for both public health agencies and publics alike. This paper takes the transnational spread of poliovirus in 2022 as an opportunity to critique how public health memories of twentieth-century polio epidemics were mobilised to encourage vaccine uptake among groups considered vulnerable to transmission, notably Orthodox Jewish families. The study integrates data collected in London and New York as part of academic engagement with health protection responses to the spread of polio. Methods in both settings involved ethnographic research, and a total of 59 in-depth semi-structured interviews with public health professionals, healthcare providers, and Orthodox Jewish community partners and residents. Analysis of results demonstrate that narratives of epidemiological progress were deployed in public health responses in London and New York, often through references to sugar cubes, iron lungs, and timelines that narrate the impact of routine childhood immunisations. While memories of polio were deployed in both settings to provoke an urgency to vaccinate, vulnerable publics instead considered the more recent legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic when deciding whether to trust recommendations and responses. Critical attention to memory places analysis on the divergences between institutional (public health agencies) and peopled (publics) responses to disease events. Responses to re-emerging infectious disease outbreaks engender a temporal dissonance when historical narratives are evoked in ways that contrast with the contemporary dilemmas of people and parents.

Between two pandemics: Older, gay men's experiences across HIV/AIDS and COVID-19

Pandemics are a component of human life, and have had great bearing on the trajectory of human evolution. Historically, the biomedical aspects of pandemics have been overrepresented, but there is growing recognition of the degree to which pandemics are socially and culturally embedded, highlighting how virus perception is socially and politically informed. Older (50+), gay men represent a population who have experienced two global pandemics in their lifespans: HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. Although governments and health officials largely failed gay men during the HIV/AIDS pandemic, gay men represent an important source of pandemic information and their experiences have much to offer health professionals and policymakers. As such, a small but growing body of literature has compared gay men's experiences amidst the two pandemics. The current study drew on constructivist grounded theory methods to examine how living through the HIV/AIDS pandemic has influenced older gay men's perspectives of COVID-19. Twenty Canadian-based gay men aged 50+ participated in semi-structured interviews via Zoom. Analysis revealed three key processes: (1) uncertainty and the familiarity of loss, (2) witnessing pandemic inequities, and, (3) navigating constantly evolving (mis)information. We highlight the utility of this knowledge to informing future pandemic planning and policies.

'It's history in the making all around us': examining COVID-19 through the lenses of HIV and epidemic history

Research increasingly considers how collective narratives/experiences of HIV influence understandings of and responses to COVID-19 among men who have sex with men and how these discussions articulate with the larger literature on the social significance of epidemics. Drawing on interviews with 30 men who have sex with men, as well as discussion of epidemics as dramaturgical events, this study aimed to determine how men living in the USA make sense of COVID-19 in the light of their collective knowledge and/or memories of the HIV pandemic. Participants experienced progressive revelations regarding COVID-19's seriousness and constructed frameworks with which to manage the unpredictability of infection. Participants also believed that the initial public response to COVID-19 on the part of the US federal government, health officials and the scientific community, although inadequate, was stronger and more extensive than the response had been to HIV. As communities and the USA negotiated their pandemic responses, participants negotiated their own personal responses with incomplete, uncertain, dynamic and conflicting information. This study provides evidence regarding the social organisation of a contemporary pandemic and how individuals perceive and guard against risk, assign responsibility for virus transmission and acquisition, and navigate the threat of a potentially deadly infection.