Vigilance in infectious disease emergencies

Expanding the concept

Datos Bibliográficos

ID4597989
AutoresJane Williams (0000-0002-0142-0299, University of Wollongong, autor de correspondencia), C Mayes (0000-0003-2674-6225, Deakin University), Eamon Flint-Peterson (University of Wollongong), Chris Degeling (0000-0003-4279-3443, University of Wollongong)
Año2024
Volumen344
Páginas116648
Fecha de publicación2024-03-01
Peer ReviewedSí
Open AccessSí
TipoARTICLE
RevistaSocial Science & Medicine (JOURNAL)
Identificadores de la revistaISSN: 0277-9536 • E-ISSN: 1873-5347
EditorialElsevier BV (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1016/j.socscimed.2024.116648
PMID38330632
OpenAlexW4391508757
IdiomaEN
Citas recibidas3
Referencias citadas19

In their 2010 book, Lorna Weir and Eric Mykhalovskiy conceptualised the role of vigilance in unknown and emerging infectious disease threats. Theirs is a macro-level account which draws on empirical data to describe vigilance as a set of technical and political arrangements that govern collection, analysis, interpretation and communication of data as it pertains to unknown threats. In this paper we expand their work to detail a conceptual analysis of the role of vigilance at the micro-level during periods of high infectious disease threat. Our data are daily press conferences and associated non-discursive tools in New South Wales (NSW), Australia during times of heightened COVID-19 risk. This paper is a conceptual analysis that draws on theories of vigilance and related concepts to show how a key aspect of vigilance is making previously unseen threats visible or present. Communications formulated and encouraged three types of vigilance as a set of governing relations: institutional or authority-based; individual outward-facing; and individual inward-facing. We also describe the relationship between vigilance and related concepts that are used in response to anticipated public threats. Authority based vigilance involved contact tracing and policing of movement and behaviours. In individual outward facing vigilance people were asked to be alert to, analyse, and react to risk in their immediate environment. Inward facing vigilance required people to gather and react to information about their own behaviours and within their own bodies. There was a relationship between different types of vigilance; as risk increased and authority-based vigilance was less successful in containing the spread of infection, individual vigilance had a stronger role to play. This extension of vigilance at the micro-level sees some of the same unintended consequences as Weir and Mykhalovskiy describe at the global level, particularly in how burdens are inequitably distributed and experienced

Cognitive psychology · Environmental health · Poison control · Political science · Politics · Public relations · Sociology · Suicide prevention · Vigilance (psychology · COVID-19 Digital Contact Tracing · COVID-19 epidemiological studies · Global Security and Public Health · Law · Medicine · Psychology · Social Psychology