NIHRDataInsights/HRCSData huggingface dataset:
Title: Street food safety in Megalopolis: Understanding foodborne illness risks in the street food market to inform public policy
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: Street food provides an affordable and nutritional intake to billions of consumers in low- and middle-income countries every day, as well as a stable source of employment for vendors. However, street food is also considered a threat for public health, as street food is one of the main determinants of foodborne diseases. We aim to understand the factors that can influence the production and consumption of safer food in urban street food markets in Kolkata, India, by collecting a representative sample of both vendors and consumers, including (i) repeated food and water sample microbiological testing of street food vendors and (ii) a comprehensive series of choice scenarios to consumers focused on eliciting preferences for safe food. This work will help inform policy-makers at both the local and national level as to how the quality of street food can be improved.


Research activity codes: 2.2 FACTORS RELATING TO PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT;8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Gender, COVID-19 and HIV: Medical and Socio-Economic Intersections in South Africa
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: Emerging research finds higher levels of COVID-19 infection and mortality among people living with HIV. While public health research is looking closely at this medical intersection, there remains relatively little anthropological research on the socio-economic intersection between gender, HIV and COVID-19. This anthropology project aims to address this under-researched field by bringing together insights on these two intersections (medical and socio-economic) in South Africa. The medical intersections and corresponding policy approaches will be explored through interviews with ten national and local public health actors. The nature of the socio-economic intersections will be explored through interviews with a group of ten women living with HIV in Khayelitsha, with whom I have worked for over a decade. This project will generate evidence that moves beyond disciplinary silos and looks at connections between public health responses to HIV and COVID-19 and complex socio-economic context in which HIV-positive women are navigating these dual epidemics.


Research activity codes: 2.3 PSYCHOLOGICAL, SOCIAL AND ECONOMIC FACTORS;7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Online games to combat health misinformation and vaccine hesitancy
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: The COVID-19 pandemic made vaccine hesitancy the focus of global attention and concern and was listed as a global health threat by the WHO. In theory, a perfectly coordinated collective action can result in disease eradication. In reality, the "wait-and see" strategy and self-centric behaviour preclude the elimination of COVID-19. Moreover, the "infodemic" around COVID-19 resulted in a WHO's call for increased resilience against misinformation. In this project, we propose developing and testing the impact of two online games designed around empathy and misinformation training to increase vaccination intentions. Gamified interventions have become popular in recent years, but the evidence remains scarce. Therefore, our results will contribute to the discussion about digital media's role in strengthening vaccine confidence. Later, the games can be translated into multiple languages, finetuned to fit other vaccine-preventable diseases or more specific audiences or used in nationwide interventions. Our research has important policy implications.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: The Mosquito: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Human Health, Ecology, and Politics
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: An unobtrusive animal often regarded as a mere nuisance, the mosquito has nevertheless decisively shaped communities, institutions, and empires. Taken together, Culex, Aedes, and Anopheles mosquitoes are among the deadliest disease vectors in our world. In recent years, a number of scholars from across the humanities and social sciences have begun to analyse the relations between humans and these insects. This conference brings those scholars together for a two-day interdisciplinary conversation about the heterogeneous ways in which mosquitoes figure in our communities. When we gather around the mosquito, complex entanglements with humans, animals, and environments come into view. Among the questions we will ask are: how have mosquitoes shaped social and political formations and inflected conceptions of the human, past and present? Would it be possible to decolonise the relationship between the mosquito and our academic disciplines? And in a warming world, what lies ahead for human relations with insect life?


Research activity codes: 8.5 RESOURCES AND INFRASTRUCTURE (HEALTH SERVICES)
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Diseased Landscapes: Exploring the entanglements between leishmaniasis and coca cultivation in (post)conflict rural Colombia
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: This project brings together interdisciplinary expertise from the UK and Colombia to explore how the nexus of agricultural extractivism and political conflict affect environmental and human health. Specifically, it addresses the relationship between illegal coca cultivation and the unsteady state of post(conflict)in Colombia through an exmination of the political geographies of cutaneous leishmaniasis—a skin disease transmitted by sandflies that thrive in areas of coca production. By investigating how coca growers, harvesters and eradicators experience leishmaniasis, this seeks to do two things. First, it explores the material, sociopolitical and biological conditions of disease in areas characterized by (post)conflict, illicit economies, irregular mobility and extreme inequality. Second, it uses leishmaniasis as an entry point to develop community-specific policy recommendations to address environmental and human health as conditions for a sustainable transition from war to peace.


Research activity codes: 2.2 FACTORS RELATING TO PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT;8.3 POLICY, ETHICS AND RESEARCH GOVERNANCE
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Neglected Tropical Diseases and antimicrobial research
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: Leishmaniasis is a parasite disease that is endemic in 98 countries worldwide, with the burden of infections in poor and disadvantaged communities in Brazil and India. It is the second most important parasitic infection globally after malaria, with approximately 700,000 – 1 million cases reported. The most serious presentation is visceral leishmaniasis, which has a mortality rate approaching 100% for untreated patients. The key bottlenecks in controlling leishmaniasis globally are 1) rapid identification of infected patients at the point-of-care (POC), 2) the urgent need for vaccines for human infection and better canine vaccines and 3) better treatments to replace those currently used that have high levels of toxicity and side effects.


Research activity codes: 2.2 FACTORS RELATING TO PHYSICAL ENVIRONMENT;5.1 PHARMACEUTICALS
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Overcoming barriers to vaccination by empowering citizens to make deliberate choices
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: Vaccine rollout has been a game-changer across G-7 countries. But policy-makers face a further challenge: how to encourage vaccine take-up when vaccine hesitancy persists? The role of individual attitudes and personal autonomy has been under-researched, and there is scope for public policy to empower citizens, and harness individual reflection to facilitate informed and deliberate choices. This project will produce new, timely, cross-country survey evidence to identify gaps between the nature of the vaccine engagement problem and the policy response across G-7 countries. This evidence will inform new vaccine engagement strategies that focus on the individual, and test how these strategies affect a person’s sense of autonomy and agency in making important vaccination decisions. We will engage in a series of research activities including policy mapping, focus group interviews, a cross-country survey, and randomised testing of vaccine engagement strategies.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Diffusion of COVID-19 vaccines: Building vaccine confidence among diverse communities in Canada and the United Kingdom
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: Vaccines are the most effective tool addressing the COVID-19 pandemic, but vaccine uptake is suboptimal in certain communities in Canada and the United Kingdom (UK). At personal and community levels, there are various reasons for hesitancy towards vaccination. This study will explore how policy changes and mis/disinformation are experienced in communities with low vaccine confidence and co-develop products which build trust in vaccines in target communities. To understand COVID-19 vaccination hesitancy, we will compare social responses to policies and actions undertaken to build vaccine confidence in communities that have shown low, average, or high levels of hesitancy in Canada and the UK. Changes in COVID-19 vaccination policies over time, their communication, community reactions; and community actions to build vaccine confidence will be explored through document reviews and interviews with community members and representatives. Recommendations for building vaccine confidence will be shared with policy and decision makers and the public.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Mapping the roles of divisions, risk and norms to overcome vaccine hesitancy in the UK, Germany and Italy.
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: The Covid-19 pandemic has led to major disruptions in life worldwide. Several highly effective vaccines have been approved by the relevant authorities. Despite these authorisations and strong promotion by the governments who see vaccines as essential to restore normality, pockets of vaccine hesitancy remain among the population. Initial evidence indicates that hesitancy correlates with the experience of (long-standing) marginalisation and tumultuous relationships with the authorities in a community. This project uses representative samples in three countries to investigate how these histories of othering and exclusion at a national level affect attitudes towards vaccination today. In addition, it will investigate what norms exist in those communities and the role of local and national leaders and peers in shaping those norms. In trying to isolate the effect of the communities we will measure and account for the individual risk and prosocial preferences, as well as trust.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: STRIVE - Sustainable Translations to Reduce Inequalities and Vaccination hEsitancy
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: STRIVE aims to understand whether effective translation practices can reduce the impact of linguistic differences as factors determining vaccine uptake between migrants and local populations in Italy. The lack of trustworthy information in a language that migrants can understand, coupled with cultural beliefs causing distrust in the health system and/or vaccines, greatly contributes to migrants’ low engagement with the vaccination campaign. STRIVE focuses on how different actors (NGOs, activists, health workers) employ multilingual practices such as translation/interpreting to overcome these inequalities and vaccination hesitancy. The project will use a VAX scale questionnaire, supported by a survey and semi-structured interviews to capture migrants’ language needs in relation to COVID-19, and the translation strategies addressing those needs. STRIVE will compare translation practices in the Emilia-Romagna region and in Rome to assess their validity and inform responses to future crises, as well as communication strategies underpinning regular vaccination campaigns.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Vaccine equity in multicultural urban settings: A comparative analysis of local government and community action, contextualised political economies, and moral frameworks in Toronto and Marseille
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: Despite the high overall vaccination rates in G7 countries such as Canada, France or the UK, significant in-country disparities are apparent, with lower vaccine uptake in urban lower-income and multicultural areas. We contend that local governments, health actors, community groups and residents play key roles in shaping vaccine (in)equity. There has been little systematic learning about ‘vaccine engagement’ at this level. Through ethnographic fieldwork and in-depth interviews in Greater Toronto and Marseille, we will understand how relationships between and within local government, health system actors and community groups and residents shape vaccine (in)equity in urban settings. We will seek to understand how experiences of structural inequalities intersect with local people’s social and moral frameworks and how these are reflected or ignored in local government approaches to promoting and delivering COVID-19 vaccines. This multi-dimensional approach will yield lessons for enhancing vaccination in the future in these urban settings.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Identifying the trustworthiness of information sources during the COVID-19 pandemic: Enhancing information reception across the population
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted the centrality of official information to effective public health strategies. Yet there are notable social and economic disparities in individuals’ acceptance of such information. A key reason for this disparity is likely to be variations in individuals’ trust in key information sources. This project explores the bases for people’s trust in information sources, and how far the levels and determinants of trust are shaped by individuals’ location in particular communities and socio-economic groups. These goals are pursued via a programme of qualitative and quantitative fieldwork in the UK and US. The project will generate important and valuable lessons for policy-makers in both countries, and at local and national levels, identifying ways to develop more effective and equitable information provision strategies and thus generating social resilience for future health crises.


Research activity codes: 7.1 INDIVIDUAL CARE NEEDS
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Ethnographies of (Dis)Engagement: Understanding Vaccine Rejection in Chronically Neglected Communities across the G7
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: Ethnographies of (Dis)Engagement' seeks to understand mistrust of COVID-19 vaccinations among some of the hardest to reach communities across G7 countries. Building on pre-existing research, the project will produce case-studies from Roma communities, undocumented migrants and African diaspora across Italy and Canada. Cases will focus on understanding vaccine 'hesitancy' within wider contexts of historical and contemporary disenfranchisement and discrimination, whilst foregrounding agential decisions made as individuals and groups to endure health crises. The proposed research brings cases that policy-makers know very little about into conversation with qualitative research commissioned through two EU Horizon projects, Sonar-Global and Pan-European Response to the Impacts of COVID-19 and Future Pandemics and Epidemics (PERISCOPE), since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. We draw on these networks to translate unpublished ethnographic evidence for policy-makers, to better inform decision-making to mitigate the effects of COVID-19 and future pandemics.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Mind the Vaccination Gap: Understanding and Overcoming the Racial/Ethnic Inequalities in Vaccination Acceptance
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: With the constant threat of new epidemic waves and the emergence of variants, COVID resilience can only be attained when a sufficient level of immunity is achieved. Yet, in the US and the UK, COVID vaccination campaigns have failed to secure consistent vaccination acceptance in racial/ethnic minority communities. Despite racial/ethnic minorities being more at risk from COVID, they are less vaccinated than the White majority. We propose that current vaccination invitation messages are deemed less trustworthy by racial/ethnic minorities than the White majority and that this might partly explain reduced vaccination acceptance. To provide causal evidence of the role of trust and actionable insights, we will experimentally assess the benefits of new invitation messages to receive the COVID-19 booster dose in large, racially/ethnically diverse samples in the US and the UK. Results will evidence how to increase message and source trustworthiness to foster trust and vaccination acceptance across racial/ethnic groups.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Mapping and visualising intersections of social inequalities, community mistrust, and vaccine hesitancy in online and physical spaces in the UK and US
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: How do social inequalities play out within the global vaccine uptake in the Covid-19 pandemic? This project maps and visualises the reasoning of vaccine hesitant groups in the UK and US whilst drawing suggestions towards community cohesion between vaccine hesitant groups and medical practitioners. It takes an interdisciplinary approach combining media studies, political communication, cross-cultural psychology, and computer science in tracing the relationship between historical legacies, cognitive processes, social media interaction and vaccine-hesitancy. We adopt a ‘symmetrical’ research design which is absent in most current studies, as we analyse the systematic prejudices of both medical communities and vaccine hesitant populations. The project investigates social, cultural, and political factors underpinning vaccine-hesitancy, study the topics and social networks of minoritised vaccine communities on Twitter, Reddit, and Telegram, and highlight biases and assumptions within medical communities about minority groups, which perpetuate mistrust based in historical unethical practices by dominant culture group members.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Understanding vaccine hesitancy amongst frontline workers – the influence of trade union and community representatives
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: The study explores how longstanding structural inequalities and experiences of working through Covid-19 manifest in the decisions frontline workers, often BME and migrant workers, make about vaccination. It locates workers and workplaces in their wider communities and explores the interaction of work and community influences and organisations. A US-UK comparison allows for interrogation of contexts specific to place, culture, social, political and economic factors. It allows for comparison of health and welfare infrastructures and of culturally sensitive healthcare systems and how these shape worker responses to vaccines. The study examines the factors informing vaccine hesitancy in the context of work and the workplace and organisational rules and expectations on vaccination. It explores the role of trade union representatives and community organisations in negotiating or mediating vaccination and in engaging workers and the community in vaccination programmes, while being sensitive to potential tensions.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Evaluating the Influence of Exposure to Anti-vax Protests on Vaccine Hesitancy across Diverse Audiences
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: We investigate the potential role that protests by anti-vaccination movement organizations play in reinforcing and perpetuating disparities in COVID-19 vaccine confidence across different populations within the United States and United Kingdom. To better understand this relationship, we examine how observer attributes—in particular, a set of socio-psychological vulnerabilities—moderate the influence of exposure to anti-vax protest events on individuals' beliefs about the safety and efficacy of the vaccine and their support for its use. We also consider whether immediate responses to such events undertaken by different types of authorities mitigate or exacerbate the relationship between anti-vax protest exposure and vaccine hesitancy. Results from survey experiments deployed in both countries will offer insights into the conditions that determine receptivity to anti-vax messaging among target communities and provide clues as to the most effective strategies available to health authorities and governments seeking to counter vaccine hesitancy provoked by anti-vax movement organizations.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Covid and the coalfield: Vaccine hesitance in Wales and Appalachia
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: The coalfields of South Wales and Appalachia share a common history of industrialisation and deindustrialisation, with a legacy of economic and health-related disadvantage. Both coalfields have been badly affected by the Covid-19 pandemic and vaccine promotion is a priority to limit this impact. The coalfields are culturally distinct and research on the specific and general factors underpinning vaccine hesitance in these regions is important to maximise vaccine uptake. The proposed project will identify attitudes towards vaccination and sociodemographic risk factors for vaccine hesitance through collection of survey data from coalfield and non-coalfield areas of Wales and the eastern United States. Findings will be shared with practitioners and policy-makers to help shape the continuing response to the pandemic.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION
Title: Youth Participatory Action Research to explore the context of ethnic minority youth responses to COVID-19 vaccines in the United States and United Kingdom
Funder: The British Academy

Abstract: As COVID-19 vaccine equity continues to be of great concern in the United Kingdom and United States, attention is growing toward groups with the lowest rates of vaccination including ethnic minorities and youth. While mainstream public rhetoric around low youth vaccine uptake focuses on youth ‘risk-taking’ and ‘apathy,’ it is imperative to understand how longstanding inequalities and current dynamics may drive these lower rates of vaccination. Youth have experienced unique challenges during the pandemic including school closures, social isolation, and loss of services and support, which may have an impact on youth (mis)trust in a range of public health experts and other government authorities. This project will use Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR) to explore the context of systemic racism, inequalities, and injustice in ethnic minority youth responses to COVID-19 vaccines. We will explore how youth conceptualise trust and what strategies might be deployed to improve vaccine engagement and equity.


Research activity codes: 3.4 VACCINES
Health categories: INFECTION