Resources

Lessons from the West Africa Ebola epidemic: A systematic review of epidemiological and social and behavioral science research priorities

This systematic literature review compared the epidemiological (EPI) research and the qualitative social and behavioral science (SBS) research published during the West Africa Ebola virus disease (EVD) epidemic. The findings support a program of action that situates data collection and analysis in real-time, recursive, integrated efforts to move community attitudes, behaviors, and responses into epidemiological research, and the paper offers recommendations to improve coordinated, multidisciplinary approaches to health emergencies.

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Ebola: Limitations of correcting misinformation

In this resource, members of the Ebola Response Anthropology Platform call on all organisations involved in the response to the Ebola outbreak to question the assumption that biomedicine must correct local logics and concerns, and the effectiveness of using standardised advice for non-standardised situations.

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New opportunities for field research on the pathogenesis and treatment of Lassa fever

This resource reviews the present literature on treatment and pathogenesis of Lassa fever and outlines priorities for future research in the field made possible by the improved research capacity of the Mano River Union countries of Sierra Leone, Liberia, and Guinea, Lassa fever network. 

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Engaging ‘communities’: Anthropological insights from the West African Ebola epidemic

This resource reflects on the nature of community engagement during the Ebola epidemic and demonstrates a disjuncture between local realities and what is being imagined in post-Ebola reports about the lessons that need to be learned for the future. It argues that to achieve stated aims of building trust and strengthening outbreak response and health systems, public health institutions need to reorientate their conceptualization of ‘the community’ and develop ways of working which take complex social and political relationships into account.

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Popular concerns about medical research projects in sub-Saharan Africa – a critical voice in debates about medical research ethics

This resource aims to move beyond the dismissal of stories about blood-stealing and trade in body parts as ‘mere’ rumour, based on erroneous belief or traditional superstition, and to instead appreciate them as modern commentaries on social relations that involve, and extend far beyond, scientific medical research.

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Getting to zero: A doctor and a diplomat on the Ebola frontline

This book exposes the often shocking shortcomings of the humanitarian response to the 2014 Ebola outbreak, both locally and internationally, and calls attention to the immense courage of those who put their lives on the line every day to contain the disease.

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Speaking with vampires: Rumor and history in colonial Africa

This book presents and interprets vampire stories from East and Central Africa as a way of understanding the world as the storytellers did. Using gossip and rumour as historical sources in their own right, it assesses the place of such evidence, oral and written, in historical reconstruction.

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