Inclusive access to science in post‐COVID era: Strategic entry points for improved livelihoods

Abstract

and effective vaccines as quickly as possible. As it turned out, these expectations were met at an exceptional speed. 1 This perhaps represents the greatest triumph of science in the 21st century, where, for the first time, concerted global efforts ensured the delivery of vaccines in the shortest possible time recorded in history. Of significance, is the reality that the pandemic also has created conditions within which citizens could receive immunisations, with a significant number rejecting vaccine nationalism. 2 Despite this success, however, we are still a long way from immunising the entire world population, especially in Latin America and Africa. 3 While high-income countries are flooded by vaccine supplies and offer booster doses to entirely vaccinated populations, 4 new variants are being discovered in countries like South Africa. Long before the onset of the pandemic, science has been at the centre stage, especially with the explosion of the knowledge ecosystem enabled by social media. Anti-climate movements, anti-vaccine, and other forms of science denialism have been spreading with disruptive consequences for quite some time. 5 However, the pandemic was just the right trigger to escalate the levels of attacks on science. In a recent statement, at its 2021 International Conference the Global Young Academy (GYA) warned about the growing perception that trust in science has weakened, raising questions about how science is communicated to the public. 6 Strong engagement in scientific communication and dissemination has been used as a weapon, a kind of antidote in modern times, 7 by those wishing to counteract denialist movements and increase confidence in science. Obviously, science can improve education to create a scientific culture that helps overcome these drawbacks, improving health and well-being in a world on the move. Perhaps a more significant challenge is to disseminate the value of the scientific method and demonstrate that its use supports evidence-based insights for a better quotidian human life. 8 This is important in order to popularise the time-tested scientific tradition that scientific data are open for rebuttal, but this needs to be done scientifically while employing similar trials in terms of scientifically validated methods, instead of addressing them through public outrage, emotions or perceptions. However, according to the Science's Editor Holden Thorp in an article entitled Persuasive words are not enough, 9 the scientific community is up against a sophisticated, data-driven machine devoted to making sure that science doesn't entirely succeed and the history of this is quite clear. Furthermore, he highlighted that the scientific community may be losing the battle against this digital mass of disinformation. Consequently, the only way to win this fight is to harness the same sophisticated tools used to bring science down. It's time to look in the mirror again. This digital industry of misinformation had also compromised effective and rapid public health responses during the last two Ebola outbreaks in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) between 2018 and 2019 10,11 and Sierra Leone between 2015 and 2016. 12 Underpinning these waves of misinformation are social, political, and economic factors. Consequently, efforts to promote significant positive effect on the public acceptance of science should include not only the same sophisticated digital tools in the name of science but strategies that take into consideration, these socio-economic and political factors. For example, it is important to ensure equitable access to fact-based information, which should be directed to hundreds of thousands of vulnerable and hard-to-reach people, who often live in slums or who are displaced (migrants and refugees), and who are, for the most part, heavily affected by the ongoing humanitarian migration crisis. 13 L E T T E R T O T H E E D I T O R DOI: 10.1002/hpm.3473