onference Announcement: After 1918: History and Politics of Influenza in the 20th and 21st Centuries

After 1918: history and politics of influenza in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries

Co-organised by Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique (Rennes/Paris) and the University of Manchester's Centre for the History of Science, Technology and Medicine.

Location: Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Santé Publique, Rennes, FRANCE

Dates: Wednesday 24 - Friday 26 August 2011

Website and Registration: http://www.chstm.manchester.ac.uk/newsandevents/conferences/influenza/index.aspx or http://www.ehesp.fr/2011/06/21/apres-1918-histoire-et-politique-de-la-grippe-aux-xxe-et-xxie-siecles-24-26-aout-2011-2/

This three-day international conference addresses the growing need for new perspectives on the global challenges in understanding and controlling influenza in the 20th and 21st centuries.

The threats of avian and swine flu have ignited extensive interest in the disease. Public health analysts, scientists and policy-makers look to past pandemics for lessons and guidance. But available historical resources are limited. Most concentrate on the 1918-19 pandemic. Its history has been widely used for understanding, predicting, and increasing awareness of influenza.

Yet this singular focus has meant that we know comparatively little about the epidemiology, politics, and social dynamics of the disease after 1918. Bringing together researchers from different disciplines and parts of the world, the conference will present new perspectives on the global challenges in understanding and controlling influenza.

The conference has three core objectives. First, it aims to foster comparative analyses of influenza in social memory, science, medicine, public policy, and national and international health. Second, it aims to explore the roots of key problems in current pandemic planning, including access to vaccines, virus surveillance, determinants of risk, biosecurity, and disease governance. Finally, it seeks to examine the nature, value and limitations of historical analysis in disease policy-making.

The conference will lay foundations for greater collaboration on research into these and other dimensions of this global disease.