{"id":368,"date":"2014-08-05T22:29:47","date_gmt":"2014-08-05T22:29:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/?p=368"},"modified":"2015-10-13T19:05:15","modified_gmt":"2015-10-13T19:05:15","slug":"ebola-and-the-epidemic-mindset","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/2014\/08\/05\/ebola-and-the-epidemic-mindset\/","title":{"rendered":"Ebola and the Epidemic Mindset"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>While President Obama is hosting an economic summit with African leaders this week, <a href=\"http:\/\/america.aljazeera.com\/articles\/2014\/8\/3\/us-africa-ebola.html\">the Ebola outbreak <\/a>is overshadowing major economic news. Experts argue that <a href=\"http:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/blogs\/post-politics\/wp\/2014\/08\/03\/cdc-director-ebola-is-out-of-control-in-west-africa-but-can-be-stopped\/\">the epidemic can be curbed<\/a>, but note <a href=\"http:\/\/www.economist.com\/news\/middle-east-and-africa\/21610250-many-sierra-leoneans-refuse-take-advice-medical-experts-ebola-death\">rampant distrust toward aid organizations in rural communities<\/a> makes treatment and prevention difficult. Social scientific research helps explain how media and governments shape the way citizens respond to outbreaks.<\/p>\n<h5>We usually think media fans the flames of mass panic, but research on previous Ebola shows media sources actually turn toward a \u201ccontainment\u201d narrative, emphasizing that it\u2019s hard to catch Ebola and the outbreak is \u201csomewhere else.\u201d<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.sociology.utoronto.ca\/people\/faculty_list_by_surname\/sheldonungar.htm\">Sheldon Ungar<\/a>. 1998. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/591262\">Hot Crises and Media Reassurance: A Comparison of Emerging Diseases and Ebola Zaire.<\/a>\u201d <i>The British Journal of Sociology. <\/i>49(1): 36-56<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>It isn\u2019t that local communities \u201cdon\u2019t understand\u201d that aid workers are there to help. Epidemics often manufacture misunderstandings and mass panic. Recently, in New York City\u2019s Chinatown, Asians were \u201cstigmatized during the SARS epidemic despite having no SARS cases.\u201d<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/colfa.utsa.edu\/ant\/people\/full-time-faculty\/bios\/laura-eichelberger\/\">Laura Eichelberger<\/a>. 2007. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.aleciashepherd.com\/writings\/articles\/other\/SARS%20and%20New%20Yorks%20Chinatown%20The%20politics%20of%20risk%20and%20blame.pdf\">SARS and New York\u2019s Chinatown: The Politics of Risk and Blame During an Epidemic of Fear.<\/a>\u201d <i>Social Science and Medicine<\/i>. 65(6): 1284\u20131295<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h5>Political context also matters, including the actions of national governments and international NGOs. Comparative work on Uganda and South Africa\u2019s approaches to HIV\/AIDS has shown top-down strategies don\u2019t calm the infection rate. Bottom-up approaches, like changing hygiene behaviors, are more effective at the local level. However, this tactic requires an environment of \u201crepresentation and democratic participation\u201d that governments and international organizations have to build and frame.<\/h5>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.lshtm.ac.uk\/aboutus\/people\/Parkhurst.Justin\">Justin O. Parkhurst<\/a> and Louisiana Lush. 2004. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/www.sciencedirect.com\/science\/article\/pii\/S0277953604000978\">The Political Environment of HIV: Lessons from a Comparison of Uganda and South Africa.<\/a>\u201d <i>Social Science and Medicine. <\/i>59(9): 1913\u20131924<\/li>\n<li>Yu-Ju Chien. 2013. \u201c<a href=\"http:\/\/onlinelibrary.wiley.com\/doi\/10.1111\/j.1467-9566.2012.01534.x\/abstract\">How Did International Agencies Perceive the Avian Influenza Problem? The adoption and manufacture of the \u2018One World, One Health\u2019 framework.<\/a>\u201d <i>Sociology of Health and Illness. <\/i>35(2): 213\u2013226<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>While President Obama is hosting an economic summit with African leaders this week, the Ebola outbreak is overshadowing major economic news. Experts argue that the epidemic can be curbed, but note rampant distrust toward aid organizations in rural communities makes treatment and prevention difficult. Social scientific research helps explain how media and governments shape the [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1893,"featured_media":584,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,85],"tags":[64,355,129,38546,4071,26128],"class_list":["post-368","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-health","category-politics","tag-globalization","tag-government","tag-media","tag-politics","tag-public-health","tag-social-programs"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/files\/2014\/08\/image.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1893"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=368"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":369,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/368\/revisions\/369"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/584"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=368"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=368"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/thesocietypages.org\/trot\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=368"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}