Political epidemiology

Strengthening socio-political analysis for mass immunisation – lessons from the smallpox and polio programmes

Datos Bibliográficos

ID15540343
AutoresSebastian Taylor (University College London, autor de correspondencia)
Año2009
Volumen4
Número6
Páginas546-560
Fecha de publicación2009-04-14
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaGlobal Public Health (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 1744-1692 • E-ISSN: 1744-1706
EditorialTaylor & Francis (PUBLISHER • GB)
DOI10.1080/17441690701727850
PMID19367477
OpenAlexW1992149858
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas10
Referencias citadas23

Control and reduction of infectious diseases is a key to attaining the Millennium Development Goals. An important element of this work is the successful immunisation, especially in resource-poor countries. Mass immunisation, most intensively in the case of eradication, depends on a combination of reliable demand (e.g. public willingness to comply with the vaccine protocol) and effective supply (e.g. robust, generally state-led, vaccine delivery). This balance of compliance and enforceability is, quintessentially, socio-political in nature - conditioned by popular perceptions of disease and risk, wider conditions of economic development and poverty, technical aspects of vaccine delivery, and the prevailing international norms regarding power relations between states and peoples. In the past 100 years, three out of six disease eradication programmes have failed. The explanations for failure have focused on biotechnical and managerial or financial issues. Less attention is paid to socio-political aspects. Yet socio-political explanations are key. Eradication is neither inherently prone to failure, nor necessarily doomed in the case of polio. However, eradication, and similar mass immunisation initiatives, which fail to address social and political realities of intervention may be. A comparison of the smallpox and polio eradication programmes illustrates the importance of disease-specific socio-political analysis in programme conceptualisation, design, and management

Development economics · Economic growth · Economics · Poliomyelitis · Poliomyelitis eradication · Political science · Politics · Poverty · Public health · Smallpox · Vaccination · Law · Medicine · Vaccine Coverage and Hesitancy · Viral gastroenteritis research and epidemiology · Virology and Viral Diseases · Immunology · Virology