Managing Risk during the COVID-19 Pandemic
Global Policies, Narratives and Practices
By Andy Alaszewski
Published
May 1, 2023Page count
192 pagesISBN
978-1447365242Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressPublished
May 1, 2023Page count
192 pagesISBN
978-1447365266Dimensions
234 x 156 mmImprint
Policy PressThe past 30 years have seen risk become a major field of study, most recently with the COVID-19 pandemic positioning it at the centre of public awareness, yet there is limited understanding of how risk can and should be used in policy making.
This book provides an accessible guide to the key elements of risk in policy making, including its role in rhetoric to legitimise decisions and choices.
Using risk as a framework, it examines how policy makers in a range of countries responded to the COVID-19 pandemic and explains why some were more successful than others.
Andy Alaszewski is Emeritus Professor at the Centre for Health Services Studies, University of Kent.
Foreword
Preface
1. Introduction: Understanding Risk
Part 1: Responding to the Initial Challenges of the Pandemic
2. The Challenge of Foresight: Framing COVID-19
3. The Risk of COVID-19: Probability, Categorisation and Outcomes
Part 2: Managing a Global Pandemic
4. Communicating Risk: Public Health Messaging
5. Overwhelming the Defences against Illness: The Pandemic and Basic Trust
6. Following the Science: Expertise and Risk
Part 3: The Reckoning
7. Pandemic Narratives: Representing Risk through Numbers or Per-sonal Stories
8. Contesting Risk: Conspiracy Theories
9. Hindsight: Inquiries and the Blame Game
Part 4: An overview
10. Conclusion