IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/pal/palcom/v8y2021i1d10.1057_s41599-021-00839-1.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

The COVID-19 wicked problem in public health ethics: conflicting evidence, or incommensurable values?

Author

Listed:
  • Federica Angeli

    (University of York Management School, University of York)

  • Silvia Camporesi

    (King’s College London)

  • Giorgia Dal Fabbro

    (University of Trento)

Abstract

While the world was facing a rapidly progressing COVID-19 second wave, a policy paradox emerged. On the one side, much more was known by Autumn 2020 about the mechanisms underpinning the spread and lethality of Sars-CoV-2. On the other side, how such knowledge should be translated by policymakers into containment measures appeared to be much more controversial and debated than during the first wave in Spring. Value-laden, conflicting views in the scientific community emerged about both problem definition and subsequent solutions surrounding the epidemiological emergency, which underlined that the COVID-19 global crisis had evolved towards a full-fledged policy “wicked problem”. With the aim to make sense of the seemingly paradoxical scientific disagreement around COVID-19 public health policies, we offer an ethical analysis of the scientific views encapsulated in the Great Barrington Declaration and of the John Snow Memorandum, two scientific petitions that appeared in October 2020. We show that how evidence is interpreted and translated into polar opposite advice with respect to COVID-19 containment policies depends on a different ethical compass that leads to different prioritization decisions of ethical values and societal goals. We then highlight the need for a situated approach to public health policy, which recognizes that policies are necessarily value-laden, and need to be sensitive to context-specific and historic socio-cultural and socio-economic nuances.

Suggested Citation

  • Federica Angeli & Silvia Camporesi & Giorgia Dal Fabbro, 2021. "The COVID-19 wicked problem in public health ethics: conflicting evidence, or incommensurable values?," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 8(1), pages 1-8, December.
  • Handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:8:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-021-00839-1
    DOI: 10.1057/s41599-021-00839-1
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://link.springer.com/10.1057/s41599-021-00839-1
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1057/s41599-021-00839-1?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Daniel A Levinthal & Luigi Marengo, 2020. "Organizations, ambiguity, and conflict: introduction to the special issue in honor of James G. March," Industrial and Corporate Change, Oxford University Press and the Associazione ICC, vol. 29(1), pages 143-149.
    2. Jacqueline Sohn, 2018. "Navigating the politics of evidence-informed policymaking: strategies of influential policy actors in Ontario," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 4(1), pages 1-12, December.
    3. Kathryn Oliver & Annette Boaz, 2019. "Transforming evidence for policy and practice: creating space for new conversations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 5(1), pages 1-10, December.
    4. Claus Rerup, 2009. "Attentional Triangulation: Learning from Unexpected Rare Crises," Organization Science, INFORMS, vol. 20(5), pages 876-893, October.
    5. William Ocasio, 1997. "Towards An Attention‐Based View Of The Firm," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 18(S1), pages 187-206, July.
    6. Christie Aschwanden, 2020. "The false promise of herd immunity for COVID-19," Nature, Nature, vol. 587(7832), pages 26-28, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Silvia Camporesi & Federica Angeli & Giorgia Dal Fabbro, 2022. "Mobilization of expert knowledge and advice for the management of the Covid-19 emergency in Italy in 2020," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-14, December.
    2. Michael Hallsworth, 2023. "A manifesto for applying behavioural science," Nature Human Behaviour, Nature, vol. 7(3), pages 310-322, March.
    3. Coilín ÓhAiseadha & Gerry A. Quinn & Ronan Connolly & Awwad Wilson & Michael Connolly & Willie Soon & Paul Hynds, 2023. "Unintended Consequences of COVID-19 Non-Pharmaceutical Interventions (NPIs) for Population Health and Health Inequalities," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(7), pages 1-40, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Robin Stevens & Nathalie Moray & Johan Bruneel, 2015. "The Social and Economic Mission of Social Enterprises: Dimensions, Measurement, Validation, and Relation," Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, , vol. 39(5), pages 1051-1082, September.
    2. Matti Mäntymäki & Sami Hyrynsalmi & Antti Koskenvoima, 2020. "How Do Small and Medium-Sized Game Companies Use Analytics? An Attention-Based View of Game Analytics," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 22(5), pages 1163-1178, October.
    3. Rick Hardcopf & Rachna Shah & Suvrat Dhanorkar, 2021. "The Impact of a Spill or Pollution Accident on Firm Environmental Activity: An Empirical Investigation," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 30(8), pages 2467-2491, August.
    4. Weiqi Dai & Mingqing Liao & Qiao Lin & Jincai Dong, 2022. "Does entrepreneurs’ proactive attention to government policies matter?," Asian Business & Management, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 21(3), pages 396-431, July.
    5. John Joseph & Alex J. Wilson, 2018. "The growth of the firm: An attention‐based view," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 39(6), pages 1779-1800, June.
    6. Christoph Grimpe & Wolfgang Sofka & Andreas P. Distel, 2022. "SME participation in research grant consortia—the emergence of coordinated attention in collaborative innovation," Small Business Economics, Springer, vol. 59(4), pages 1567-1592, December.
    7. Tomi Laamanen, 2019. "Dynamic attention-based view of corporate headquarters in MNCs," Journal of Organization Design, Springer;Organizational Design Community, vol. 8(1), pages 1-15, December.
    8. Mayberry, Robert & Boles, James S. & Donthu, Naveen & Lucke, James T., 2024. "Crisis response in an era of Knightian uncertainty," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 170(C).
    9. Daina Mazutis & Katherine Hanly & Anna Eckardt, 2022. "Sustainability (Is Not) in the Boardroom: Evidence and Implications of Attentional Voids," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 14(14), pages 1-17, July.
    10. Yoon, Hyungseok & Tashman, Peter & Benischke, Mirko H. & Doh, Jonathan & Kim, Namil, 2024. "Climate impact, institutional context, and national climate change adaptation IP protection rates," Journal of Business Venturing, Elsevier, vol. 39(1).
    11. Matti Mäntymäki & Sami Hyrynsalmi & Antti Koskenvoima, 0. "How Do Small and Medium-Sized Game Companies Use Analytics? An Attention-Based View of Game Analytics," Information Systems Frontiers, Springer, vol. 0, pages 1-16.
    12. Luca Berchicci & Murat Tarakci, 2022. "Aspiration formation and attention rules," Strategic Management Journal, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(8), pages 1575-1601, August.
    13. Blankenburg Holm, Desirée & Drogendijk, Rian & Haq, Hammad ul, 2020. "An attention-based view on managing information processing channels in organizations," Scandinavian Journal of Management, Elsevier, vol. 36(2).
    14. Max M. Weber & Peter Kokott, 2024. "Organizational Resilience and the Attention-Based View of the Firm—Empirical Evidence from German SMEs," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(11), pages 1-24, May.
    15. William Ocasio & John Joseph, 2018. "The Attention-Based View of Great Strategies," Strategy Science, INFORMS, vol. 3(1), pages 289-294, March.
    16. Sreejith Kumar Krishnakumar & Rajiv Kishore & Nallan C. Suresh, 2022. "Expansive or focused attention? An exploration–exploitation perspective on e‐Business systems and firm performance," Production and Operations Management, Production and Operations Management Society, vol. 31(5), pages 2038-2066, May.
    17. Andrews, Daniel S. & Fainshmidt, Stav & Ambos, Tina & Haensel, Kira, 2022. "The attention-based view and the multinational corporation: Review and research agenda," Journal of World Business, Elsevier, vol. 57(2).
    18. Vecchiato, Riccardo, 2020. "Analogical reasoning, cognition, and the response to technological change: Lessons from mobile communication," Research Policy, Elsevier, vol. 49(5).
    19. Hu, Hui & Qi, Shaozhou & Chen, Yuanzhi, 2023. "Using green technology for a better tomorrow: How enterprises and government utilize the carbon trading system and incentive policies," China Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 78(C).
    20. Dwibedy, Punyashlok, 2022. "Informal competition and product innovation decisions of new ventures and incumbents across developing and transitioning countries," Journal of Business Venturing Insights, Elsevier, vol. 17(C).

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:pal:palcom:v:8:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1057_s41599-021-00839-1. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.nature.com/ .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.