title: Biosocial Approaches to the 2013-2016 Ebola Pandemic.
abstract: Despite more than 25 documented outbreaks of Ebola since 1976, our understanding of the disease is limited, in particular the social, political, ecological, and economic forces that promote (or limit) its spread. In the following study, we seek to provide new ways of understanding the 2013-2016 Ebola pandemic. We use the term, 'pandemic,' instead of 'epidemic,' so as not to elide the global forces that shape every localized outbreak of infectious disease. By situating life histories via a biosocial approach, the forces promoting or retarding Ebola transmission come into sharper focus. We conclude that biomedical and culturalist claims of causality have helped obscure the role of human rights failings (colonial legacies, structural adjustment, exploitative mining companies, enabled civil war, rural poverty, and the near absence of quality health care, to name but a few) in the genesis of the 2013-16 pandemic. From early 20th century smallpox and influenza outbreaks to 21st century Ebola, transnational relations of inequality continue to be embodied as viral disease in West Africa, resulting in the preventable deaths of hundreds of thousands of people.
authors: PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at Stanford University, Stanford, CA, USA; and a Research Scientist at Partners In Health, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
authors: Eugene T
authors: ET
authors: Richardson
authors: Co-founder of Wellbody Alliance, Koidu, Sierra Leone; an MMSc Candidate in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; and Strategic Adviser to Partners In Health, Freetown, Sierra Leone.
authors: Mohamed Bailor
authors: MB
authors: Barrie
authors: Co-founder of Wellbody Alliance, Koidu, Sierra Leone; and a Lecturer in the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA.
authors: J Daniel
authors: JD
authors: Kelly
authors: Medical Director of Wellbody Alliance, Koidu, Sierra Leone.
authors: Yusupha
authors: Y
authors: Dibba
authors: Chief of Staff of the Kono District Ebola Response Center (DERC), Koidu, Sierra Leone.
authors: Songor
authors: S
authors: Koedoyoma
authors: Co-founder of Partners In Health, Boston, MA, USA; Kolokotrones University Professor of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA; and Chief of the Division of Global Health Equity at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Boston, MA, USA. He is Editor-in-Chief of Health and Human Rights Journal .
authors: Paul E
authors: PE
authors: Farmer
mesh_terms: D000354:Africa, Western / Q000453:epidemiology; D019142:Hemorrhagic Fever, Ebola / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000517:prevention & control / Q000821:virology; D006806:Human Rights; D006801:Humans; D058873:Pandemics / Q000517:prevention & control*; D011787:Quality of Health Care / Q000592:standards; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors