Public apprehension of emerging infectious diseases: are changes afoot?

Abstract

Using social representations theory this paper casts light on the pattern of content that characterises the public response to emerging and re-emerging infectious diseases (EID). The pattern is: distancing the disease from the self/one’s in-groups; blame of particular entities for the disease’s origin and/or spread; and stigmatisation of those who have contracted it and/or who are represented as having intensified its spread. This pattern is not unique to EID but extends to many risks, making EID fruitful events for understanding public apprehension of potential dangers. This process may be driven by worry, fear and anxiety since when levels of these are low, as has arguably been the case with the 2009/10 “Swine Flu” pandemic, the pattern transforms. The distancing-blame-stigma pattern may also be transformed by growing reflexivity, a feature of late modern societies, as well as material features of the epidemic and “EID fatigue.”