Ineffective responses to unlikely outbreaks: Hypothesis building in newly-emerging infectious disease outbreaks

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dc.contributor.authorJephcott, F.L.
dc.contributor.authorWood, J.L.N.
dc.contributor.authorBonney, J.H.K.
dc.contributor.authoret al.
dc.date.accessioned2023-12-20T11:29:13Z
dc.date.available2023-12-20T11:29:13Z
dc.date.issued2023
dc.descriptionResearch Articleen_US
dc.description.abstractOver the last 30 years, there has been significant investment in research and infrastructure aimed at mitigating the threat of newly emerging infectious diseases (NEID). Core epidemiological processes, such as outbreak investigations, however, have received little attention and have proceeded largely unchecked and unimproved. Using ethnographic material from an investigation into cryptic encephalitis outbreak in the Brong-Ahafo Region of Ghana in 2010– In 2013, in this paper, we trace processes of hypothesis building and their relationship to the organizational structures of the response. We demonstrate how commonly recurring features of NEID investigations produce selective pressures in hypothesis building that favors iterations of pre-existing “exciting” hypotheses and inhibit the pursuit of alternative hypotheses, regardless of relative likelihood. These findings contribute to the growing anthropological, scientific, and technology studies (STS) literature on the epistemic communities that coalesce around suspected NEID outbreaks and highlight an urgent need for greater scrutiny of core epidemiological processes.en_US
dc.identifier.otherDOI: 10.1111/maq.12827
dc.identifier.urihttp://ugspace.ug.edu.gh:8080/handle/123456789/41070
dc.language.isoenen_US
dc.publisherMedical Anthropology Quarterlyen_US
dc.subjectemerging infectious diseaseen_US
dc.subjectglobal healthen_US
dc.subjecthypothesis-buildingen_US
dc.titleIneffective responses to unlikely outbreaks: Hypothesis building in newly-emerging infectious disease outbreaksen_US
dc.typeArticleen_US

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