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Pathogens
Special Issues
The Ethnographic Study of Infectious Disease Epidemics
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The Ethnographic Study of Infectious Disease Epidemics

A special issue of Pathogens (ISSN 2076-0817). This special issue belongs to the section "Epidemiology of Infectious Diseases".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (30 November 2022) | Viewed by 8438

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Merrill Singer

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Anthropology, University of Connecticut, 354 Mansfield Road, Unit 1176, Storrs, CT 06269-1176, USA
Interests: syndemics; ecosyndemics; climate change
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Nicola Bulled

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Institute for Collaboration on Health, Intervention, and Policy, University of Connecticut, Storrs, CT, USA
Interests: syndemics; HIV; biopolitics; refugee integration
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Epidemics are biosocial events that produce both biological and social crisis, yet as seen in the case of the COVID-19 pandemic, policy and practical focus tend to concentrate on the biology of disease and its treatment or prevention despite the fact that social factors have shaped all aspects of the pandemic, from who gets sick to who dies, to who gets vaccinated, to what people learn about COVID-19. As a method, ethnography entails researchers embedding themselves for a prolonged period in a field site of study in order to systemically document the events that transpire, relationship processes (including interspecies relationships), day-to-day lives, behaviors, and interactions of a community of people, including online communities and interactions, and the social and physical contexts of everyday life. In a globalized world, ethnography has evolved to study multi-site phenomena and cross-national social hierarchies. Ethnography provides an on-the-ground (and increasingly, on the internet) method for the direct study of the complex social side of epidemics and biosocial processes. As a result, ethnographic studies of epidemics shed light on five critical issues: popular understandings and responses; the social construction of risk; interspecies entanglements and disease transmission; social injustice and vulnerability to infection; and social factors and fractures in counter-epidemic intervention. The proposed Special Issue will include a curated set of epidemic ethnographies from across the globe.

Prof. Dr. Merrill Singer
Dr. Nicola Bulled
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Pathogens is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2700 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 1001 KiB  
Article
An Epidemic of Drug Resistance: Tuberculosis in the Twenty-First Century
by Jens Seeberg
Pathogens 2023, 12(5), 652; https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens12050652 - 27 Apr 2023
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1209
Abstract
With an estimated two billion people being carriers of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI), the gains achieved by increasing access to diagnostics and treatment, although substantial, have had a modest impact on the global burden of tuberculosis (TB). At the same time, increased access [...] Read more.
With an estimated two billion people being carriers of latent tuberculosis infection (LTBI), the gains achieved by increasing access to diagnostics and treatment, although substantial, have had a modest impact on the global burden of tuberculosis (TB). At the same time, increased access to treatment has had the unintended consequence that drug-resistant TB (DR-TB) has increased dramatically. Earlier TB control strategies strongly emphasizing medical treatment have failed to address these issues effectively. The current strategy to eliminate TB by 2050 is accompanied by a call for a paradigm shift, emphasizing patient rights and equity more. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in Odisha, India, and global-level TB conferences, this paper contrasts the dynamics of global health policy and strategy-making with the lived realities of patients with DR-TB. A more thorough rethinking of the biosocial dynamics that impact the pathogenic disease is required to develop a comprehensive paradigm shift for TB control in the twenty-first century. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Ethnographic Study of Infectious Disease Epidemics)
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18 pages, 290 KiB  
Article
Purity, Danger, and Patriotism: The Struggle for a Veteran Home during the COVID-19 Pandemic
by Ippolytos Kalofonos and Matthew McCoy
Pathogens 2023, 12(3), 482; https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens12030482 - 18 Mar 2023
Viewed by 1999
Abstract
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic rendered congregate shelter settings high risk, creating vulnerability for people experiencing homelessness (PEH). This study employed participant observation and interviews over 16 months in two Veteran encampments, one located on the grounds of the West Los Angeles [...] Read more.
The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic rendered congregate shelter settings high risk, creating vulnerability for people experiencing homelessness (PEH). This study employed participant observation and interviews over 16 months in two Veteran encampments, one located on the grounds of the West Los Angeles Veteran Affairs Medical Center (WLAVA) serving as an emergency COVID-19 mitigation measure, and the other outside the WLAVA gates protesting the lack of onsite VA housing. Study participants included Veterans and VA personnel. Data were analyzed using grounded theory, accompanied by social theories of syndemics, purity, danger, and home. The study reveals that Veterans conceptualized home not merely as physical shelter but as encompassing a sense of inclusion and belonging. They sought a Veteran-run collective with a harm reduction approach to substance use, onsite healthcare, and inclusive terms (e.g., no sobriety requirements, curfews, mandatory treatment, or limited lengths of stay). The twin encampments created distinct forms of community and care that protected Veterans from COVID-19 infection and bolstered collective survival. The study concludes that PEH constitute and belong to communities that provide substantial benefits even while amplifying certain harms. Housing interventions must consider how unhoused individuals become, or fail to become, integrate into various communities, and foster therapeutic community connections. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Ethnographic Study of Infectious Disease Epidemics)
16 pages, 2659 KiB  
Article
COVID-19, Framing and Naming a Pandemic: How What Is Not in a Disease Name May Be More Important than What Is
by T. S. Harvey
Pathogens 2023, 12(2), 346; https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens12020346 - 18 Feb 2023
Viewed by 2688
Abstract
While the disease name and acronym COVID-19, where ‘CO’ refers to ‘corona’, ‘VI’ to virus, ‘D’ to disease, and ‘19′ the detection year, represents a rational, historically informed, and even culturally sensitive name choice by the World Health Organization, from the perspective of [...] Read more.
While the disease name and acronym COVID-19, where ‘CO’ refers to ‘corona’, ‘VI’ to virus, ‘D’ to disease, and ‘19′ the detection year, represents a rational, historically informed, and even culturally sensitive name choice by the World Health Organization, from the perspective of an ethnography of disease framing and naming, this study finds that it does not, however, readily communicate a public health message. This observation, based on linguistic and medical anthropological research and analyses, raises a critically important question: Can or should official disease names, beyond labeling medical conditions, also be designed to function as public health messages? As the ethnography of the term COVID-19 and its ‘framing’ demonstrates, using acronyms for disease names in public health can not only reduce their intelligibility but may also lower emerging public perceptions of risk, inadvertently, increasing the public’s vulnerability. This study argues that the ongoing messaging and communication challenges surrounding the framing of COVID-19 and its variants represent an important opportunity for public health to engage social science research on language and risk communication to critically rethink disease naming and framing and how what they are called can prefigure and inform the public’s uptake of science, understandings of risk, and the perceived importance of public health guidelines. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Ethnographic Study of Infectious Disease Epidemics)
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16 pages, 1324 KiB  
Article
COVID-19 in Pluralea Interactions: A Case Study in Santo Tomé (Corrientes, Argentina)
by Andrea Mastrangelo, Andrea Alegre and Karina Giménez
Pathogens 2023, 12(2), 291; https://doi.org/10.3390/pathogens12020291 - 09 Feb 2023
Viewed by 1369
Abstract
This paper is an ethnographic case study of COVID-19 emergence in Santo Tomé (South America, NE Argentina, ≂25,000 inhabitants). Based on interviews with healthcare personnel, we describe local containment and prevention policies in a context of national lockdown measures. We reconstruct a tree [...] Read more.
This paper is an ethnographic case study of COVID-19 emergence in Santo Tomé (South America, NE Argentina, ≂25,000 inhabitants). Based on interviews with healthcare personnel, we describe local containment and prevention policies in a context of national lockdown measures. We reconstruct a tree diagram of infections, index cases and close contacts that spread infection locally. In parallel, fieldwork in a sample of impoverished subsistence agricultures and fishermen allows us to describe drought and fresh food production decline during confinement as convergent ecocrises (pluralea interactions) with the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak. The core idea of the article, which emerged from ethnographic fieldwork evidence, is that in the context of climate change, the sudden onset of an infectious disease interacts with convergent ecocrises. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue The Ethnographic Study of Infectious Disease Epidemics)
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