A new social sciences network for infectious threats

The members of the SoNAR-Global network will (1) facilitate learning opportunities and sharing of data, tools, and knowledge through the SoNAR-Global platform; (2) promote collaborations within regions, between social scientists, and across the social, biomedical, and veterinary sciences and public health programmes; (3) adapt, test, and promote social sciences tools for assessing human vulnerability, for identifying multisectoral drivers of vulnerability,6 for determining appropriate resource allocations for vulnerable populations, and for strengthening local resilience networks; (4) develop and implement effective models for engaging communities and integrating the social sciences into preparedness and response strategies for infectious disease threats and antimicrobial resistance; (5) build capacity of the social sciences through curriculum development for social scientists who collaborate with diverse stakeholders during infectious outbreaks and in addressing antimicrobial resistance; (6) work closely with the Global Research Collaboration for Infectious Disease Preparedness (GloPID-R), the Joint Programme Initiative on Antimicrobial Resistance (JPIAMR), and other networks and institutions responding to infectious threats, antimicrobial resistance, and related health emergencies. SoNAR-Global is already acting to assist with response to the Ebola epidemic, working closely with the Global Outbreak Alert Response Network–Research Social Sciences to map social science research in the North Kivu and Ituri regions of DRC, and in Uganda, Rwanda, Burundi, and South Sudan. To achieve our goal of building bridges within Europe and around the world, SoNAR-Global must forge strong relations among social scientists and across national health systems, public health experts, policy makers, ethicists, biomedical researchers, clinicians, and most of all people living on the front-lines of infectious disease outbreaks and antimicrobial outbreak emergence.