Our responses to COVID-19 should be driven by sciences. That is, by all sciences.
While efforts to develop pharmaceutical interventions for COVID-19 are under way, the social and behavioural sciences can help policymakers and the public better understand how to manage threats, navigate different social and cultural contexts, improve science communication, align individual and collective interests, employ effective leadership, and provide social and emotional support. By leveraging these insights, people would be better equipped to encourage the population the take the critical steps outlined by epidemiologists and other public health experts to minimize the devastation of the current pandemic.
You are invited to discuss here new research and to crowdsource lessons learned by social and behavioral sciences from the previous epidemics and outbreaks.
The outcomes of this team's work would be used in a brief to inform policy and projects on one-science response to COVID-19.
You are welcomed to react to any of these discussion threads (see discussion section of the e-team) and/or initiate any new threads on the topic.
To kick start the conversation, here are some thoughts on the issue:
What social scientists need us to know
COVID-19: Lessons from the past
In Indonesia, the COVID-19 pandemic hurts poor women the most