What is it about?
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the importance of timely reporting of outbreaks both within and between countries. However, there remain gaps in our understanding of the factors that affect outbreak reporting. In particular, the various political, economic, social, and behavioral factors that affect outbreak reporting in the Asia-Pacific region, where both the SARS and COVID-19 pandemics emerged, are not well-understood. This paper describes a protocol for a study that will investigate these factors by surveying and interviewing field epidemiologists in the Asia-Pacific region.
Featured Image
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash
Why is it important?
We intend to investigate the various technical and non-technical factors that impact outbreak reporting in the Asia-Pacific region, with a focus on reporting at the ground level where outbreaks start. These findings will hopefully inform changes to the reporting process to promote faster outbreak reporting and responses, thereby helping prevent outbreaks from growing into larger epidemics or pandemics.
Perspectives
I hope this study will demonstrate that improving outbreak reporting is not the responsibility of a particular specialty or field but requires an all-hands, cross-cutting approach across different sectors, both scientific and non-scientific.
Amish Talwar
Australian National University
Read the Original
This page is a summary of: Investigating the barriers and enablers to outbreak reporting in the Asia-Pacific region: A mixed-methods study protocol, PLoS ONE, August 2024, PLOS,
DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0300077.
You can read the full text:
Contributors
The following have contributed to this page
