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Kasstan-Dabush B, Flores SA, Easton D, Bhatt A, Saliba V, Chantler T. Polio, public health memories and temporal dissonance of re-emerging infectious diseases in the global north. Soc Sci Med 2024; 357:117196. [PMID: 39180777 DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.117196] [Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 03/28/2024] [Revised: 07/30/2024] [Accepted: 08/05/2024] [Indexed: 08/26/2024]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ben Kasstan-Dabush
- Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom; The Vaccine Centre, Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom.
| | - Stephen A Flores
- National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States
| | - Delia Easton
- New York State Department of Health, Albany, NY, United States
| | - Achal Bhatt
- National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA, United States
| | - Vanessa Saliba
- Immunisation and Vaccine Preventable Diseases Division, United Kingdom Health Security Agency, London, United Kingdom
| | - Tracey Chantler
- Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom; The Vaccine Centre, Department of Global Health and Development, London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, Keppel Street, London, WC1E 7HT, United Kingdom
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Handlovsky I, Wonsiak T, Amato AT, Halpin M, Ferlatte O, Kia H. Between two pandemics: Older, gay men's experiences across HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. SSM. QUALITATIVE RESEARCH IN HEALTH 2023; 3:100233. [PMID: 36777813 PMCID: PMC9905043 DOI: 10.1016/j.ssmqr.2023.100233] [Citation(s) in RCA: 3] [Impact Index Per Article: 3.0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 11/14/2022] [Revised: 02/06/2023] [Accepted: 02/07/2023] [Indexed: 02/11/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Ingrid Handlovsky
- School of Nursing, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada
- Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada
| | - Tessa Wonsiak
- School of Nursing, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada
| | - Anthony T Amato
- Institute on Aging & Lifelong Health, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada
- School of Public Health and Social Policy, University of Victoria, 3800 Finnerty Road, Victoria, BC, V8P 5C2, Canada
- Community-Based Research Centre, 1007-808 Nelson Street, Vancouver, BC, V6Z 2H2, Canada
| | - Michael Halpin
- Department of Sociology and Social Anthropology, Dalhousie University, Box 15000, Halifax, Nova Scotia, B3H 4R2, Canada
| | - Olivier Ferlatte
- École de Santé Publique de l'Université de Montréal, 7101 Ave. du Parc Montreal, Quebec, H3N 1X9, Canada
- Centre de Recherche en Santé Publique, Université de Montréal et CIUSSS du Centre-Sud-de-l'Île-de-Montréal, Canada
| | - Hannah Kia
- UBC School of Social Work, 2080 West Mall, Vancouver, British Columbia, V6T 2Z3, Canada
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Nunes MDO, Deslandes S, Verdi MIM, Harayama RM, Leão LHDC, Silva MBBE, Gerhardt TE. A research agenda for the Social and Human Sciences during the COVID-19 pandemic. CAD SAUDE PUBLICA 2021; 37:e00158421. [PMID: 34730689 DOI: 10.1590/0102-311x00158421] [Citation(s) in RCA: 1] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.3] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Track Full Text] [Journal Information] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 06/25/2021] [Accepted: 08/31/2021] [Indexed: 11/22/2022] Open
Affiliation(s)
| | - Suely Deslandes
- Instituto Nacional de Saúde da Mulher, da Criança e do Adolescente Fernandes Figueira, Fundação Oswaldo Cruz, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil
| | | | - Rui Massato Harayama
- Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina, Florianópolis, Brasil.,Universidade Federal do Oeste do Pará, Santarém, Brasil
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Braksmajer A, London AS. 'It's history in the making all around us': examining COVID-19 through the lenses of HIV and epidemic history. CULTURE, HEALTH & SEXUALITY 2021; 23:1500-1515. [PMID: 34254890 DOI: 10.1080/13691058.2021.1933184] [Citation(s) in RCA: 2] [Impact Index Per Article: 0.7] [Reference Citation Analysis] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 10/12/2020] [Accepted: 05/18/2021] [Indexed: 06/13/2023]
Abstract
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.
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Affiliation(s)
- Amy Braksmajer
- Department of Sociology, State University of New York at Geneseo, New York, NY, USA
| | - Andrew S London
- Department of Sociology, Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, Syracuse University, New York, NY, USA
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