A disconnected policy network: The UK's response to the Sierra Leone Ebola epidemic

Social Science & Medicine
James Georgalakis

Abstract

This paper investigates whether the inclusion of social scientists in the UK policy network that responded to the Ebola crisis in Sierra Leone (2013-16) was a transformational moment in the use of interdisciplinary research. In contrast to the existing literature, that relies heavily on qualitative accounts of the epidemic and ethnography, this study tests the dynamics of the connections between critical actors with quantitative network analysis. This novel approach explores how individuals are embedded in social relationships and how this may affect the production and use of evidence. The meso-level analysis, conducted between March and June 2019, is based on the traces of individuals' engagement found in secondary sources. Source material includes policy and strategy documents, committee papers, meeting minutes and personal correspondence. Social network analysis software, UCINet, was used to analyse the data and Netdraw for the visualisation of the network. Far from being one cohesive community of experts and government officials, the network of 134 people was weakly held together by a handful of super-connectors. Social scientists' poor connections to the government embedded biomedical community may explain why they were mo...Continue Reading

References

Nov 5, 2014·Annals of the American Thoracic Society·T Eoin West, Amélie von Saint André-von Arnim
Nov 14, 2014·Nature·Christopher J M WhittySally C Davies
Feb 24, 2015·Lancet·Sharon Alane AbramowitzVinh-Kim Nguyen
Oct 11, 2017·PLoS Neglected Tropical Diseases·Christiane HagelPeter Tinnemann

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Software Mentioned

ESARG
Netdraw
Social Network Analysis ( SNA
UCINet
ERAP
SNA

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