In the room where it happens: The consequences of the lack of public health expertise during the COVID-19 pandemic

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.31646/gbio.102

Keywords:

COVID-19, pandemic, public health, field epidemiology

Abstract

The lack of public health expertise in COVID-19 pandemic decision-making has come at a high price. We outline examples of this and explain why multidisciplinary expertise is critical for good pandemic control.

Author Biographies

C Raina MacIntyre, University of New South Wales

Professor Raina MacIntyre (MBBS Hons 1, M App Epid, PhD, FRACP, FAFPHM) is Professor of Global Biosecurity at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney. She is a dual-specialist physician with extensive track record in infectious diseases, vaccines and transmission dynamics of pathogens. As Head of the Biosecurity Program, she leads research in epidemiology, vaccinology, bioterrorism prevention, mathematical modelling, public health and clinical trials in infectious diseases. Her research includes personal protective equipment, vaccinology, epidemics of emerging infectious diseases and bioterrorism prevention. She is an expert in influenza epidemiology, adult vaccination, bioterrorism and rapid epidemic intelligence and has led the largest body of research internationally on face masks and respirators in health care workers. She has a 20 year track record in public health control of infectious diseases including vaccinology, surveillance and program design. She has over 370 publications in peer-reviewed journals. Her research is underpinned by extensive field outbreak investigation experience. She is a graduate of the Australian Field Epidemiology Training program and has extensive experience in shoe-leather epidemiology of infectious diseases outbreaks. Her in-depth understanding of the science of outbreak investigation draws from this experience combined with her clinical training as a specialist physician and her academic training through a Masters and PhD in Epidemiology. Her passion for field epidemiology led her to co-found the ARM network for Australian field outbreak response. She also has an interest in the ethics of medicine, and specifically in dual-use research of concern in the fields of synthetic biology and genetic engineering, and the risk this poses to biosecurity. She is on editorial boards for Vaccine, BMJ Open and Epidemiology & Infection, and has served on numerous expert committees including for WHO, IOM and OIE. She was won numerous awards for her research including the Sir Henry Wellcome Medal from the Association of Military Surgeons of the United States, the National Immunisation Award from Public Health Association of Australia, and the Frank Fenner Prize for advanced research in infectious diseases. See: https://research.unsw.edu.au/people/professor-raina-macintyre

Nancy Binkin, University of California, San Diego

Dr. Binkin has a longstanding interest and experience in global health. She worked for 20 years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and subsequently as chief of the policy and evidence unit in the Health Section of UNICEF. She worked in more than 30 countries in Africa, Asia, and Latin America on a range of topics but focusing on maternal and child health (MCH). She also worked for 12 years with the Italian National Institute of Health, where she ran an epidemiology training program and led the establishment of the Italian Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System (PASSI) and played a major role in establishing the national childhood nutrition survey (OKKIO alla salute) and served as the liaison to a variety of European training initiatives. She currently serves as a consultant for the USAID-sponsored Translating Research into Action (TRAction) project, where she is the lead technical advisor for a series of projects designed to improve equity in MCH services, and for TEPHINET, the international network of epidemiology training programs.

Downloads

Published

2021-01-11

How to Cite

MacIntyre, C. R., & Binkin, N. (2021). In the room where it happens: The consequences of the lack of public health expertise during the COVID-19 pandemic. Global Biosecurity, 3(1). https://doi.org/10.31646/gbio.102

Issue

Vol. 3 (2021)

Section

Editorials and Commentaries

License

Copyright (c) 2021 The Author(s)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:
  1. Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution License that allows others to share the work with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  2. Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.
  3. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post their work online (e.g., in institutional repositories or on their website) prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (See The Effect of Open Access).
Received 2020-12-29
Accepted 2020-12-29
Published 2021-01-11