Polio, public health memories and temporal dissonance of re-emerging infectious diseases in the global north

Ben Kasstan-Dabush*, Stephen A. Flores, Delia Easton, Achal Bhatt, Vanessa Saliba, Tracey Chantler

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Social science research on polio has been centred in the global south, where countries that remain endemic or vulnerable to outbreaks are located. However, closely-related strains of poliovirus were detected in the sewage systems of several New York State counties and London boroughs in 2022. These detections constituted the first encounters with polio in the United States and United Kingdom for a generation – for both public health agencies and publics alike. This paper takes the transnational spread of poliovirus in 2022 as an opportunity to critique how public health memories of twentieth-century polio epidemics were mobilised to encourage vaccine uptake among groups considered vulnerable to transmission, notably Orthodox Jewish families. The study integrates data collected in London and New York as part of academic engagement with health protection responses to the spread of polio. Methods in both settings involved ethnographic research, and a total of 59 in-depth semi-structured interviews with public health professionals, healthcare providers, and Orthodox Jewish community partners and residents. Analysis of results demonstrate that narratives of epidemiological progress were deployed in public health responses in London and New York, often through references to sugar cubes, iron lungs, and timelines that narrate the impact of routine childhood immunisations. While memories of polio were deployed in both settings to provoke an urgency to vaccinate, vulnerable publics instead considered the more recent legacy of the COVID-19 pandemic when deciding whether to trust recommendations and responses. Critical attention to memory places analysis on the divergences between institutional (public health agencies) and peopled (publics) responses to disease events. Responses to re-emerging infectious disease outbreaks engender a temporal dissonance when historical narratives are evoked in ways that contrast with the contemporary dilemmas of people and parents.

Original languageEnglish
Article number117196
JournalSocial Science and Medicine
Volume357
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Sept 2024

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2024 The Authors

Keywords

  • Memory
  • Outbreaks
  • Polio
  • Public health
  • Vaccination

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