The elasticity of freedom – compulsory/voluntary quarantine and community health autonomy protocol in emergency pandemics

SoP 2024 RFC
1
  • Title

The elasticity of freedom – compulsory/voluntary quarantine and community health autonomy protocol in emergency pandemics

  • Team member names

Zoe Liu, Arnaud Gao

  • Short summary of your improvement idea

The future improvement of public health might highly depends on the development of primary healthcare system and the empowerment of communities to take care of its residents. The failure events witnessed during the quarantine period indicate that our society needs stronger communities health autonomy protocol to clarify its responsibilities, construct the priority-setting procedure and negotiate with all stakeholders involved, espectially under extrem conditions. The project will start by reviewing quarantine practice during the Covid-19 pandemic but intends to go further to explore its potential in the improvement of other fields of public health. By comparing the quarantine policies and practices of different countries during Covid-19 pandemics, also by conducting field research and interviews, this project intends to find solutions for renewing the community health autonomy protocol to enhance the capacity and resilience of communities to safeguard public health.

  • Answers to the following questions. (Please structure the body in explicit Q&A form)
  1. What is the existing target protocol you are hoping to improve or enhance?

The years 2020 to 2023 witnessed a prolonged fight against the Covid-19 pandemic alongside quarantine policies adopted worldwide as one of the most effective ways of controlling the spread of epidemics. The quarantine policies did achieved appreciable successes failure events were also frequently emerged. From our point of view, the failure events in quarantine practice indicate the weakness and limitation of community health autonomy protocol as the guardian of residents’ health and wellbeing. The project will start from the review of quarantine practice during the Covid-19 pandemic but intends to go further to explore its potential in the improvement of other fields of public health – e.g. community home-based elderly health care. In our view, future improvement of public health might depend heavily on the development of primary healthcare system and the empowerment of communities to care for their residents. The failure events witnessed during the quarantine period indicate that our society needs a stronger community health autonomy protocol to clarify its responsibilities, construct the priority-setting procedure and negotiate with all stakeholders involved, espectially under extreme conditions.

  1. What is the core idea or insight about potential improvement you want to pursue?

According to the French Sociologist Bruno Latour’s Actor-Network Theory, the society can be seen as an ever-changing social web in which all the actors participate in the process of Web-net (Bruno Latour, Reassembling the Society: An Introduction to Actor-Network-Theory, 2005) to construct social facts. In the community health autonomy protocol, the motivations of the actors involved can be both private and public; whereas governmental and non-governmental. Through policy analysis and qualitive research, the project aims to assess the legitimacy and limits of a compulsory and intrusive policy in which ‘resident’ actors relinquish some of their rights in order for the ‘administrator’ actors to take in charge, thus for the value of common good . Problems then arise including: 1)What specific ‘right’ can be relinquished or ‘violated’ and to what extent? 2)Where does its validity come from, legitimacy, government decree or regulation? Or can it come from a bottom-up waiver and transfer of power throught the contracting and construction of the community health autonomy protocol? 3)What in this networking process should be done by the government and how can the protocol be organically integrated into the existing the national healthcare system. By reflecting on the possible improvements of the protocol, this project aims to find solutions to strengthen the capacity and resilience of communities to safeguard public health.

  1. What is your discovery methodology for investigating the current state of the target protocol?

field observation & expert interviews & historical data analysis

The project will begin with an analysis of quarantine policies retrieved from government documents in different countries, followed by qualitative research through fieldwork and interviews. The fieldwork intends to target interlocutors from 5-7 selected provinces in China, ideally covering most of the regions of the Chinese mainland. The researchers will visit sites including, but not limit to, the community (urban areas) or village (the rural areas) autonomy organization - the councils, primary healthcare institutions, local private pharmacies and residents - to listen to their experiences during the quarantine and what that they expect to be further considered in this community health autonomy protocol. Meanwhile, on-site semi-structured interviews or telephone interview will also be conducted with public health administration experts from both the government and hospitals at different levels to learn in depth about their opinions on the comparative study of cross-cultural quarantine practices and methods to enhance the community’s capacity and resilience to safeguard public health through the autonomy protocol.

  1. In what form will you prototype your improvement idea?

The expected outcome to prototype the improvement idea will be a draft proposal shared with experts for feedback.

  1. How will you field-test your improvement idea?

The researchers intend to cooperate with social organizations to present our ideas at events or workshops to get feedbacks and furthermore, if possible, to run a pilot programme in a selected community to see if and how the empowerment of community health autonomy can help improve residents’ health condition by constructing of the protocol.

  1. Who will be able to judge the quality of your output? (Ideally name a few suitable judges.)

Prof. Tianshu Pan 潘天舒 (Fudan University)

Prof. Hengpeng Zhu 朱恒鹏 (University of Chinese Academy of Social Sciences)

Prof. Wannian Liang 梁万年 (Tsinghua University)

Prof. Yansui Yang 杨燕绥 (Tsinghua University)

Guocheng Zhao 赵国臣 (Tencent SSV)

  1. How will you publish and evangelize your improvement idea?

The researchers intend to cooperate with social organizations such as Tencent SSV, and try to run a pilot programme of community health autonomy empowerment in a selected community, then to promote the mode in multi locations.

  1. What is the success vision for your idea?

The success vision for our project is to establish a robust and responsive community health autonomy protocol that can effectively manage public health crises, such as pandemics, by empowering local communities. We aim to achieve a model where community-led initiatives become integral to the primary healthcare system, enhancing the overall resilience and capacity of communities to safeguard public health.

The success of this research can be measured by the following outcomes:

  • Increased Community Engagement: The protocol should result in higher levels of active participation and engagement from community members in managing their own health and well-being, especially during health emergencies.

  • Improved Public Health Outcomes: By empowering communities and incorporating their insights and resources, we expect to see better health outcomes during public health crises, demonstrated by reduced transmission rates, faster containment of potential outbreaks, and overall better management of health services.

  • Stronger Integration with National Health Systems: The protocol should seamlessly integrate with existing national and regional healthcare policies, creating a more coherent health management system that leverages both top-down and bottom-up approaches.

  • Scalability and Adaptability: The success of the protocol will also be judged by its flexibility to be adapted and implemented in diverse settings, not just in the pilot communities but across different regions with varying socioeconomic contexts.

  • Policy Adoption: A long-term indicator of success would be the adoption of the community health autonomy protocol by health authorities and governments as part of standard practice for public health management.

  • Sustainable Practices and Policies: The protocol should foster sustainable health practices that can be maintained beyond the immediate crisis, contributing to long-term health security and preparedness.

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