TY - JOUR

T1 - Follow *the* science?

T2 - On the marginal role of the social sciences in the COVID-19 pandemic

AU - Lohse, Simon

AU - Canali, Stefano

N1 - Funding Information: We wish to thank Karim Bschir, Saana Jukola, Jörn Knobloch and the audience of the LCSS lunch talk in 11/2020 (hosted by the Leibniz Centre for Science and Society, Leibniz University Hannover) for helpful discussions of the issues addressed in this paper. Special thanks to Philippe van Baßhuysen, Sabina Leonelli and two anonymous reviewers for providing critical and/or positive feedback on this paper. We are also indebted to the philosophy, STS and policy bubbles on Twitter, which pointed us towards many useful media reports on the COVID-19 pandemic. The work of SL is part of the research project “Improving Interdisciplinary Knowledge Integration in Public Health Crisis Management”, funded by Volkswagen Foundation.

PY - 2021/12

Y1 - 2021/12

N2 - In this paper, we use the case of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe to address the question of what kind of knowledge we should incorporate into public health policy. We show that policy-making during the COVID-19 pandemic has been biomedicine-centric in that its evidential basis marginalised input from non-biomedical disciplines. We then argue that in particular the social sciences could contribute essential expertise and evidence to public health policy in times of biomedical emergencies and that we should thus strive for a tighter integration of the social sciences in future evidence-based policy-making. This demand faces challenges on different levels, which we identify and discuss as potential inhibitors for a more pluralistic evidential basis.

AB - In this paper, we use the case of the COVID-19 pandemic in Europe to address the question of what kind of knowledge we should incorporate into public health policy. We show that policy-making during the COVID-19 pandemic has been biomedicine-centric in that its evidential basis marginalised input from non-biomedical disciplines. We then argue that in particular the social sciences could contribute essential expertise and evidence to public health policy in times of biomedical emergencies and that we should thus strive for a tighter integration of the social sciences in future evidence-based policy-making. This demand faces challenges on different levels, which we identify and discuss as potential inhibitors for a more pluralistic evidential basis.

KW - Evidence-based policy

KW - Interdisciplinarity

KW - Pluralism

KW - Public health

KW - Scientific expertise

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85117691185&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1007/s13194-021-00416-y

DO - 10.1007/s13194-021-00416-y

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:85117691185

VL - 11

JO - European Journal for Philosophy of Science

JF - European Journal for Philosophy of Science

SN - 1879-4912

IS - 4

M1 - 99

ER -