Health screening strategies for international air travelers during an epidemic or pandemic

Air travelers can carry an infectious disease's pathogenic microorganism in their bodies and spread the disease from one country to another in a few days. To delay the spread, health screening stations may be set up at airport terminals to screen travelers. This research tested three different health screening strategies, each with a different combination of screening stations at trip origins, destinations and connecting airports. Discrete event simulations were performed, based on the 2014 to 2016 Ebola virus epidemic, with special focus on travelers from the West African countries traveling to the United States, including travelers who transferred flights at airports in European Union member states. The effectiveness of the screening strategies was analyzed in terms of correct detection, missed detection and false alarm rate. The results showed that exit screening at trip origins brought big improvements in the performance measurements compared to no screening. However, additional screening at the destinations and connecting airports contributed marginal benefits.     

Explaining Americans’ responses to dread epidemics: an illustration with Ebola in late 2014

Despite several surveys of Americans’ responses to Ebola as people were treated or died in the US in the late fall of 2014, little was published on factors that might affect these responses, despite their value for informing future management and communication regarding outbreaks of novel infectious diseases. This explanatory aim was the goal of a national quota online sample of Americans (n = 815) who reported their beliefs and attitudes about Ebola in early December, three weeks after the second US death. Responses were shaped particularly by risk judgments and concern, but also by available Ebola information (from news attention or residence in a state with Ebola experience), political cues (partisanship, ideology), and demographics. Judgments of personal risk and US/global risk were shaped by largely different factors; for example, knowledge of Ebola exposure routes exhibited negative and positive signs, respectively. News attention was associated with both positive (e.g. trust in US Centers for Disease Control & Prevention [CDC]; knowledge) and negative (e.g. US/global risk perception; concern about a US outbreak and family member infection) reactions. Findings suggest challenges for future health communication.     

Negative Spillovers Across Partnerships for Responsible Innovation: Evidence from the 2014 Ebola Outbreak

Humanity faces ongoing and contemporaneous grand challenges. Occasionally, abrupt shocks escalate a grand challenge’s salience over others. Prior research has advocated forming partnerships to address grand challenges via responsible innovation. Yet, it remains unclear how temporal changes in the salience of a grand challenge impact innovation performances of partnerships. We address this research gap by bridging the literature on issue salience, responsible innovation and interorganizational relationships. We argue that shocks either aid or harm the performance of partnerships for responsible innovation depending on whether their domains are directly or indirectly affected. The Ebola outbreak in 2014 sets the empirical context to test our theory. We find that while the innovation performance of Ebola partnerships formed after the outbreak rose eleven-fold, the performance of partnerships treating Influenza fell by 84.9 per cent. Our theory and findings have immediate implications for today’s COVID-19 outbreak, cautioning against salience shifts among concurrent grand challenges.     

‘No Ebola…still doomed’ – The Ebola-induced tourism crisis

Many recent crisis and disasters affecting tourism have been studied, but few explicitly explore health related crisis in developing countries. This study analyses the effect of the Ebola Virus Disease Epidemic (EVDE) on The Gambia, where, despite no reported cases, EVDE had devastating consequences. A Rapid Situation Analysis is used to gain insights into responses to the EVDE, encompassing interviews with key stakeholders, field observations and follow up meetings with those involved in managing the crisis over 21 months. A crisis and disaster framework is used to understand the challenges encountered. Findings highlight the importance of consumer perception and preparedness and management failures’ consequences, contributing to the broader debate on the indirect threat of epidemics on tourism in developing countries.     

Hazard avoidance,symbolic and practical: the case of Americans’ reported responses to Ebola

Reducing potential dangers by changing routine behavior to avoid certain people, places, or technologies can be prudent, but reporting avoidance also can be symbolic. This study probed Americans’ reactions to Ebola from December 2014 to May 2015 with a longitudinal study (final n = 625), plus a representative sample in May: How much did they claim to avoid West Africans, commercial flights, Ebola-associated cities, and four other targets? What factors affected self-reported avoidance? Did people with opportunities to implement avoidance report more (e.g. frequent flyers can change their routine behavior more to avoid commercial flights than can infrequent flyers)? The December 2014 survey found most people never considered avoidance, but substantial minorities claimed acting or intending to avoid each target; substantial majorities of May 2015 respondents reported avoidance intentions if a new Ebola outbreak occurred in Africa or the United States. Perceptions of personal risk, concern about infection, and following Ebola news were primary factors in reported avoidance, with temporal reversals (e.g. news following increased avoidance in December but decreased it in May). Opportunity enhanced reported avoidance in December 2014 by indirect effects through personal risk, concern, and news following, but decreased avoidance intentions in May 2015 through direct effects of opportunity on avoidance. Temporal shifts in avoidance reports and associations seem consistent with objective declines in Ebola cases, perhaps mediated by changes in news coverage. Further consideration of avoidance behavior and the role of opportunity could enhance hazard management.     

Ebola and the rhetoric of US newspapers: assessing quality risk communication in public health emergencies

Abstract

The 2014 West African Ebola outbreak was the first to be actively covered by the US media because of cases treated on US soil. Despite little chance of widespread contagion, US media termed Ebola ‘apocalyptic.’ The objective of this study was to understand how information about Ebola provided to the public through US newspapers was presented to assess how risk communication principles were or were not used. We conducted a systematic content analysis using a purposive sample of 75 news articles published in five US newspapers between 1 August and 31 October 2014. The articles were analyzed using the Dudo et al. framework, based on the extended parallel process model, and assessed for self-efficacy information, personal risk conceptualization (risk magnitude and risk comparison information), and content framing. We found that while coverage was mostly factual, it inconsistently presented quality risk-related information, and rarely used contextual information that would help readers accurately assess risk. Few articles also provided usable, actionable directives, a tenet of good crisis communication that enhances self-efficacy and lowers risk perception. Results inform how news coverage can affect public risk perception of a new, ‘exotic’ pathogen, and how in the case of Ebola US newspapers may have contributed to the inflated risk perception observed in the US population, and may support better, more comprehensive media response during likely future outbreaks.     

The impact of the Arab Spring and the Ebola outbreak on African equity mutual fund investor decisions

Financial development and stock markets have been widely considered to be key factors in economic growth. Among institutional investors, mutual funds play a key role in providing financial resources to stock markets, particularly in developing countries. Different from other investments, mutual fund flows could be affected by retail investors’ behavior and their overreaction to specific events. We considered 78 equity mutual funds that are geographically specialized in African countries and observed monthly flows and performance for the period of 2006–2015. We find that two major events, Ebola and the Arab Spring, significantly affected the fund flows, controlling for fund performance, expenses and market returns. Retail investors over-reacted to these major events, withdrawing their savings from the African mutual funds. This result is particularly strong when connected to the media coverage of these events: the higher the number of articles about Arab Spring and Ebola, the higher the withdrawals. These irrational investors’ behavior damaged the funds’ managers market timing ability, and reduced the equity capital injection into African stock markets. Our results have several implications for both holders of frontier market mutual funds and the overall asset management industry.     

PHEIC机制与世界卫生组织的角色演进冰

为了更好地应对全球公共卫生挑战,《国际卫生条例(2005)》提出了“国际关注的紧急公共卫生事件(PHEIC)”这一概念,并授予世界卫生组织推进国际合作的新职权。具体而言,世卫组织扮演着提供政策建议、指导国际合作的规范性角色以及开展实地应对的行动性角色。从运作实践来看,世卫组织长期形成的技术专长以及政策建议的科学性是其扮演规范性角色的基础,科学认知的发展和应对经验的积累有助于提升世卫组织在协调国际集体行动方面的权威性。与此同时,在应对卫生危机的过程中,国际社会对世卫组织的期待进一步提升,要求它提供更多实际的卫生服务。世卫组织行动性角色经由一系列改革措施得到了扩展,在协调研究、实地运作、资金调拨等领域的能力确实得到了提升。但是,资源短缺和作为专门性组织的职权局限依然是影响其治理行动有效性的重要障碍。在应对跨国传染性疾病的问题上,国家的支持、合作决心以及对公共卫生体系的长期投入才是国际组织与国际合作机制有效性的根本保证。     

Science vs. fear: the Ebola quarantine debate as a case study that reveals how the public perceives risk

This study focuses on newspaper coverage of the Hickox quarantine incident, using it as a case study to examine how the media characterized the spread of disease in an ongoing crisis situation characterized by uncertainty. The study builds on Slovic et al.’s research, who argue that risk perception is comprised of both emotional and analytical aspects. We employed a qualitative approach, first examining articles on Hickox’s story in The New York Times and New York Daily News between October 25 and 31, 2014; and second, readers’ comments in response to these articles. The findings from the newspaper articles show that in their treatment of the quarantine debate, the media did not address the issue of uncertainty, and thus continued the health authorities’ neglect of this issue. Although the media gave expression to various sides of the debate, it emphasized those who objected to the quarantine policy, thus raising the claim that the conflict was between ‘science’ and the public’s ‘irrational fears,’ and that the governors decided on quarantine in response to the public’s panic and fears. From our analysis of readers’ comments, it appears that these claims are unjustified. First, we found that the public did not speak in a single unified voice, but rather, was divided into supporters and opponents of quarantine. Both sides used scientific arguments and resorted to similar terminology, and tended to cite and present studies backing their arguments. As for irrational fears, although quarantine supporters expressed emotions, they indicated mainly concerns, not panic or hysteria.