Abstract
Vulnerability has become a key concept in emergency response research and is being critically discussed across several disciplines. While the concept has been adopted into global health, its conceptualisation and especially its role in the conceptualisation of risk and therefore in risk assessments is still lacking. This paper uses the risk concept pioneered in hazard research that assumes that risk is a function of the interaction between hazard and vulnerability rather than the neo-liberal conceptualisation of vulnerability and vulnerable groups and communities. By seeking to modify the original pressure and release model, the paper unpacks the representation or lack of representation of vulnerability in risk assessments in global health emergency response and discusses what benefits can be gained from making the underlying assumptions about vulnerability, which are present whether vulnerability is sufficiently conceptualised and consciously included or not, explicit. The paper argues that discussions about risk in global health emergencies should be better grounded in a theoretical understanding of the concept of vulnerability and that this theoretical understanding needs to inform risk assessments which implicitly used the concept of vulnerability. By using the hazard research approach to vulnerability, it offers an alternative narrative with new perspectives on the value and limits of vulnerability as a concept and a tool.
Highlights
While health and medicine use the term “risk” widely, its use usually lacks conceptualisation and is often defined merely in the sense of probability
Such a conceptual understanding can be used as a basis for improving targeted risk management and risk reduction interventions by providing action points for intervention and understanding where they lie in the progression of vulnerability. This opens the possibility to prioritise interventions. Combining these two approaches leads to a potential use of the adapted Pressure and Release (PAR) model for estimating risk and vulnerability under alternative management approaches
Vulnerability is a key part in risk and this should be recognised in all fields that inherently deal with risk
Summary
Open Access (Re‐) conceptualising vulnerability as a part of risk in global health emergency response: updating the pressure and release model for global health emergencies. Charlotte Christiane Hammer1*, Julii Brainard, Alexandria Innes and Paul R.
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