Gathering meaningful scientific evidence during an outbreak is challenging, particularly in dynamic, resource-limited settings where health systems are stretched and communities face overlapping challenges. Yet in these contexts, understanding how people perceive risk, make decisions, adapt, and show resilience is more critical than ever. Evidence on these important aspects brings real-life experiences into focus and provides a fuller picture to those leading outbreak response of what communities need, trust, and are willing to act on to protect themselves and others.
This webinar marks the launch of WHO's interim guidance for social and behavioral research for mpox public health emergencies - the first of its kind - developed to strengthen the quality, ethics and impact of producing such evidence in an emergency response. The guidance builds on the outcomes of a multi-stakeholder meeting held in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, in 2024, which brought together Ministries of Health, researchers and academics, operational partners, civil-society organizations and funders to advance community-centred and evidence-informed mpox public health responses. The report form this meeting will also be launched at the webinar.
Objectives of the Webinar
- To introduce WHO's interim guidance for social and behavioural research for mpox public health responses – outlining its purpose, development process, audience and relevance to improving the production and availability of high quality evidence for public health responses,
- To reflect on the ethical and practical challenges of producing scientific evidence on community dynamics during the mpox public health emergency of international concern, drawing on key outcomes from a multi-stakeholder meeting in Kinshasa,
- To present tools to support the implementation of the guidance, including a reporting tool and a protocol template, and to encourage participants to consider how they can use these resources in their own work.
Speakers
Welcome Remarks: Dr Jeremy Farrar, Chief Scientist, WHO and Dr Nedret Emiroglu, Director, Health Emergencies Core Capabilities, WHO
Remarks on the interim guidance for social and behavioural research for the mpox public health response: Dr Nina Gobat, Senior Technical Advisor, Evidence and analytics, CPR, WHO
Panel discussion: Evidence for community-centred mpox public health response
- The importance of community engagement, working sensitively with vulnerable population and mitigating stigma – why these principles are core to the guidance and essential for not doing harm in practice: Mr Cesar Azuba Mombunza, the Congolese Network of Religious Leaders Living with or Personally Affected by HIV or AIDS (CONERLA+)
- Day-to-day practical challenges in conducting social and behavioural research that this guidance helps to address: Ferdinand Nsengimana, Institut National de Santé Publique, Burundi, PI Africa CDC
- Why this work needs dedicated funding and support: Gilian MacKay, Senior Humanitarian Health Research Advisor
Q&A