Human behaviour in pandemics: social and psychological determinants in a global health crisis

Abstract

necessary tools to go beyond the narrow focus of current studies that– according to the authors – suffer from a fragmented and segregated knowledge base by focusing on particular ethno-national groups or by focusing on specific sectors such as public healthcare or civil society. Moreover, most current studies do not provide a comprehensive overview of the entire welfare ecosystem, including informal dimensions of provision (Schrooten, Thys & Debruyne (eds) (2019) Sociaal schaduwwerk. Politeia), a perspective that is well elaborated in this book. Another important asset of the concept is its multiscalarism, which includes scapes and resources ranging from the local to the transnational and the virtual. By making visible how resources from all over the world are connected to solve health – or welfare – concerns, the concept has the potential to contribute to overcome themethodological nationalism still present in social work (Schrooten (2021) Transnational social work. Journal of Social Work, 21:5, 1163–1181). Yet, apart from a reference to the existence of transnational and virtual resources, these perspectives are largely absent from the book. The connection of resources across welfare regimes and borders is not elaborated, nor is the transnational or the virtual explicitly included in the ‘welfare ecosystem’ approach developed in the book, which is limited to a local organisation perspective. This is a missed opportunity to pay attention to ‘the hidden’, including transnational resources as well as resources without a formal organisational structure. Further developing these hidden aspects would strongly contribute to the potential of the concept and further enrich its ability to bring innovation to healthcare systems and beyond.