Policy learning from influenza and the preparedness of the public health sector: A Latvian case study

Due to globalization and continuous development and mutation and development of various pathogens, infectious diseases have transcended the public health sector and become issues of Global Public Health Security. Influenza – an infectious disease that is both a cyclical, yearly occurrence and the cause of several deadly global pandemics – regularly challenges the public health sector thus providing opportunities for policy learning and evidence bases policy change. By applying the Algorithm for continuous analysis of policy learning and change, this publication investigates whether and how policy learning and change took place in Latvia after the 2006/2007 influenza season, when a record number of infection cases was registered. Although the conclusions of this publication cannot be generalized, it provides valuable insights for future research, especially for the analysis of the management of the Covid-19 pandemic in Latvia.

Content

Author and article information

Journal

Title: ScienceOpen Preprints

Publisher: ScienceOpen

Publication date (Electronic preprint): 18 April 2021

Affiliations

[1 ] Department of political science, University of Latvia, Lauvas iela 4, Riga Latvia, LV-1019.

Author information

Ieva_Daniela Beinarovica https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7119-1882

Article

DOI: 10.14293/S2199-1006.1.SOR-.PPXG57D.v1

SO-VID: c966a525-afc0-4020-929d-7fd6458e6178

License:

This work has been published open access under Creative Commons Attribution License CC BY 4.0 , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. Conditions, terms of use and publishing policy can be found at www.scienceopen.com .

History

Date received : 18 April 2021

Data availability: The datasets generated during and/or analysed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

ScienceOpen disciplines: Political science

Keywords: policy learning,policy making,crisis management,emergency management,influenza

Comments

Diana Saparniene wrote:

Hello,

I am glad to have the opportunity to participate in the review process of this paper. This topic is very interesting, actuall, in great connection with the present global situation. However, I see a few possible important improvements:

1) to update the literature sources, especially in the theoretical part of the paper. The majority of cited literature now is older than 10 years;

2) to divide the discussion and conclusions into two sections. Put more reflection on your topic and the impact of the current situation;

3) to expand the analysis of the concept “policy learning and change“ or “policy learning and behavioural change“ in the theoretical part of the paper. Moreover, there is question, why in the topic of the paper there is no dimension of „change“, while in the whole article the concept “policy learning and change“ mostly is going next to each other;

4) As the topic is showing that the paper will present the “case study”, there is lack of attention for the presentation of case study strategy in the methodological part, as well it would be important to strengthen this dimension in the conclusions.

Best regards,

Diana Šaparnienė

Klaipėda University, Lithuania

2021-05-21 11:03 UTC

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