1,721,012 research outputs found
Settling the Ripples:An examination of Sri Lanka’s approach to addressing cascading impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic
Full text linkThe COVID-19 pandemic in Sri Lanka has not only posed a severe threat to human health and longevity but also cascaded into a large scale economic downturn and bleak social effects signifying the systemic nature of risks. This study examines the major economic and social effects caused by the first wave of COVID-19 in the country and the manner in which these effects have been addressed with the aim of providing policy implications for systemic risk governance. This chapter is based on a number of secondary sources and primary data gathered from interviews conducted with key informants at both national and sub-national levels. Findings show that the pandemic has caused severe socio-economic impacts across the country which have been addressed with the main dominant involvement of the Presidential Task Forces, NGOs and INGOs at national level and Disaster Management and Public Health authorities at sub-national level. Effective collaboration among multiple-stakeholders and the emulation of a decentralised approach have been identified as the main strengths of Sri Lanka’s approach to overcoming the cascading effects of the pandemic. However, response to these effects has been hampered due to inefficiencies caused with the establishment of new structures instead of leveraging the existing structures, difficulties faced in accurately identifying beneficiaries of relief services, inadequate allocations for stimulus packages and lack of focus on resilience building. Findings further demonstrate that effective and efficient mitigation of the cascading effects of hazards such as pandemics, calls for a shift in focus from short term response to building both economic and societal resilience
Analysing the effectiveness of varied stakeholder segments in preparedness planning for epidemics and pandemics in Sri Lanka:Application of Social Network Analysis (SNA)
Full text linkThe COVID-19 outbreak has caused severe disruptions in health, social, economic, and political sectors highlighting the need for focusing on the dynamic nature of systemic risks. The cascading impacts of the COVID-19 have already evidenced the systemic nature of risks related to biological outbreaks. Therefore, the emulation of a multi-sectoral approach for preparedness planning related to biological hazards has become a global concern. This research aims at outlining major stakeholders in epidemic and pandemic preparedness planning in Sri Lanka including those who are responsible for potential cascading impacts. The process of identifying stakeholders and their roles has drawn on a review of secondary literature and primary data gathered through in-depth interviews conducted with key informants in the disaster management and public health sectors in the country. Social Network Analysis approach was used to visualise and analyse the network of stakeholders. Findings have highlighted that currently, the preparedness planning related to epidemics and pandemics in Sri Lanka is a health sector-led process. There is a pressing need for a unified legal framework and a streamlined system of governance for risk management related to biological hazards in the country. Furthermore, it is important to broaden the scope of stakeholders involved in preparedness planning for biological hazards and to include the private sector, international development agencies, and community-based organisations. Moreover, there is a need to intensify the national focus on building economic and social resilience to address the potential cascading impacts. Key findings of this study will help to enhance the effectiveness of preparedness planning for biological hazards, through a multi-sectoral approach operational under a unified legal framewor
COVID 19:Have we got our priorities right in planning for the pandemic in low resource settings in the Global South
No full textPlanning the delivery of health services in poor countries, in the wake of the COVID pandemic has drawn considerable interest. The world media has highlighted the shortage or near absence of intensive care units and ventilators in several countries in Sub Saharan Africa and a disproportionate amount of focus has been paid on developing intensive care services- including mechanical ventilation, as an urgent priority for these countries. While mechanical ventilation and other critical care services are an important part in the management of a small group of very unwell patients, the overall mortality of such patients remains high even in centres with considerable experience in providing such services. In the wake of a pandemic wave, a much larger proportion of patients admitted to hospitals will require oxygen therapy, and many of these countries are currently ill-equipped to provide this very basic intervention which has the potential to save many more lives. Ensuring uninterrupted oxygen supply and planning to provide titrated oxygen therapy to multiple patients simultaneously perhaps in large field hospitals must be prioritised in health delivery planning in poor countries in the global south. An over-emphasis on ventilators and advanced organ support that may benefit a significantly smaller cohort of victims by developing ad-hoc intensive care units with high labour intensity will not serve the broader health needs of these countries in the wake of the current pandemic or its future iteration
COVID 19:Have we got our priorities right in planning for the pandemic in low resource settings in the Global South
No full textPlanning the delivery of health services in poor countries, in the wake of the COVID pandemic has drawn considerable interest. The world media has highlighted the shortage or near absence of intensive care units and ventilators in several countries in Sub Saharan Africa and a disproportionate amount of focus has been paid on developing intensive care services- including mechanical ventilation, as an urgent priority for these countries. While mechanical ventilation and other critical care services are an important part in the management of a small group of very unwell patients, the overall mortality of such patients remains high even in centres with considerable experience in providing such services. In the wake of a pandemic wave, a much larger proportion of patients admitted to hospitals will require oxygen therapy, and many of these countries are currently ill-equipped to provide this very basic intervention which has the potential to save many more lives. Ensuring uninterrupted oxygen supply and planning to provide titrated oxygen therapy to multiple patients simultaneously perhaps in large field hospitals must be prioritised in health delivery planning in poor countries in the global south. An over-emphasis on ventilators and advanced organ support that may benefit a significantly smaller cohort of victims by developing ad-hoc intensive care units with high labour intensity will not serve the broader health needs of these countries in the wake of the current pandemic or its future iteration
Building Resilience:Introduction
Full text linkThe recent COVID-19 pandemic has been perceived and experienced by most governments and societies across the globe as an unprecedented shock. However, facts reveal that pandemics have been far from alien. Before the advent of the Coronavirus, a number of outbreaks have repeatedly triggered the world ranging from those as early as the Spanish flu of 1918, the Asian flu of 1957 to more recent outbreaks such as HIV/AIDS in 1981, SARS in 2003 and MERS in 2012. Most countries have demonstrated a low level of preparedness for COVID-19, have failed to incorporate pandemics in their Disaster Risk Reduction (DRR) strategies, and to act on the basis of science and warnings about the threat of a pandemic. COVID-19 has given rise to complex risk scenarios and compound vulnerabilities which most countries have hardly anticipated. Most countries have barely recognized multi-hazard scenarios although now they are faced with the challenge of responding to extreme climatic events such as floods, earthquakes and landslides in the midst of their boundless efforts to curtail the spread of COVID-19. The pandemic has called into question the viability of existing response mechanisms to climatic events and urged relevant stakeholders to rethink their approaches, at all levels. The effects of the pandemic have not failed to transcend the health sector, cascading into other sectors such as the economy, society, legal systems and politics. This way, the pandemic has not just dismantled one part of a system but failed the entire system thereby showcasing the systemic nature of risks
COVID-19 nexus with food security and sustainable growth:Impacts, implications and road to resilience in Sri Lanka
Full text linkCovid-19 pandemic, one of the most significant humanitarian and development setbacks faced by humankind in the known history, imposes immeasurable risks to the progress of sustainable development and human wellbeing. It is a health crisis that went beyond anyone’s control, leading to a global pandemic, but on the other end, it is an economic catastrophe that might takes years, if not decades, for a full recovery. Impacts vary from region to region, country to country and district to district, depending on how resilient, lean, agile the systems are. However, impacts are undoubtedly immense. Developed, developing, and least developed countries are battling to regain social, cultural and economic progress. Due to the pandemic, Sustainable Development Goals, commonly known as SDGs, the global blueprint with clearly set development targets to be achieved by 2030, has faced enormous strain as never before. Among 17 goals of the SDGs, Goal 1: No Poverty, Goal 2: Zero Hunger, Goal 03: Good Health and Well-being, Goal 4: Quality Education, and Goal 8: Decent Work and Economic Growth have been pushed back by the pandemic. While the pandemic has significant impacts on all the goals and targets, this chapter specifically discusses the impacts of Covid-19 on goals 1 and 2 and their overall impacts on food security and sustainable growth, with particular emphasis on Sri Lanka. The chapter also discusses potential recovery options to regain the path to SDG, prosperity and splendour in the island nation
Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis
Full text linkThe present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation
counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings
are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that
only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into
account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
Preparing, responding and re-opening:Lessons from the UK to emerge during the COVID-19 pandemic
Full text linkA year after the first human cases of Covid-19 were identified in late 2019, the global Covid-19 pandemic had already killed more than 2.25 million people and infected more than 103 million people. By late 2020, the disease caused by this novel coronavirus had resulted in devastating health, economic, social and environmental impacts on countries across the world. In attempting to reduce these impacts, governments have introduced a wide range of different measures and with varying levels of success. The novel coronavirus has hit Europe especially hard, and the UK has had one of the continent’s worst Covid-19 outbreaks, recording among the highest Covid-19 deaths per million people. The UK Government has taken numerous measures to minimise the virus’s impacts across three stages of the pandemic: preparedness, responding, and re-opening. This study evaluates the UK pandemic risk governance approach by examining the strengths, weaknesses and challenges across these three stages. The study is based on a systematic desk review of publications in the Science Direct, Emerald and Google Scholar databases. A literature review protocol was developed in carrying out the study. After applying inclusion and exclusion criteria, forty-six papers were selected from the three databases for the review. The analysis revealed several best practices within the UK pandemic risk governance system but also exposed shortcomings and challenges related to each of the preparedness, response and re-opening stages. Further analysis of this literature also revealed potential strategies to overcome these challenges. These included strengthening pandemic preparedness measures, strengthening social and economic support systems and assuring risk governance mechanisms. The study provides valuable insights on areas to be strengthened for future pandemic preparedness and response measures
Health resilient cities in a post Covid world
No full textSince the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus infectious disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak a pandemic on 11 March 2020, the everyday lives of the whole global population have been drastically changed. Lockdown shortened many of the physical worlds to homes and immediate neighbourhoods. Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, multiunit residential buildings/apartments/condominiums have been of particular concern to both public health practitioners and the occupants due to the enhanced risk they faced. There is an immense trend in constructing condominiums. Sri Lanka is particularly investing in condominium development for luxury housing as well as to resettle low-income communities. Given the circumstances, it was required to investigate what are the additional risks/exposures that inhabitants of the condominium developments faced during the CoVID19 and how that can be overcome in a future pandemic scenario to support creating health resilient cities. This study is as reported in this chapter is based on a detailed literature critique. It is also framed as a preliminary study that is aimed at supporting the development of an in-depth future study. Accordingly, an exploratory literature review was carried out with 41 published literature which included journal papers, books, online research reports and news articles. Results of the study indicated the need to rethink how we design, develop and construct condominiums that can massively support to enhance the social, economic, physical lives of people and thereby support to create health resilient future cities. Sri Lanka is heavily investing in condominium developments should consider these factors in constructing condominium developments to ensure that future cities are health resilient
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