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Chapter 54 - The Threat of Pandemics to Interwoven Material, Social, Health, and Political Resources: Conservation of Resources as a Strategy for Avoiding Repeating Past Failure

from Section 6 - Designing, Leading, and Managing Responses to Emergencies and Pandemics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 January 2024

By
Stevan E Hobfoll
Edited by
Richard Williams ,
Verity Kemp ,
Keith Porter ,
Tim Healing  and
John Drury
Richard Williams
Affiliation:
University of South Wales
Verity Kemp
Affiliation:
Independent Health Emergency Planning Consultant
Keith Porter
Affiliation:
University of Birmingham
Tim Healing
Affiliation:
Worshipful Society of Apothecaries of London
John Drury
Affiliation:
University of Sussex
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Summary

Conservation of resources (COR) theory demands that we examine the full spectrum of potential resource loss and resources at risk in circumstances of a life-threatening pandemic, in order to predict and respond to psychological, social, material, financial, and sociopolitical outcomes. In the case of the COVID-19 global pandemic, health experts and academics responded within their siloed expertise, which ignored economic and sociopolitical imperatives, resulting in near-disastrous consequences that they still fail to appreciate. Many people in the population at risk had their employment, availability to feed themselves and their families, and housing and shelter threatened, as well as their health and lives, but this interwoven network of resources was mostly ignored. This divide between the sociopolitical-economic domain and the public health domain led to public resistance and allowed an authoritarian political wedge to further complicate and undermine not only health, but also the very fabric of democracy.

Keywords

authoritarianismconservation of resources (COR) theoryCOVID-19economic wellbeingmass casualtypandemicpopulismstress
Type
Chapter
Information
Major Incidents, Pandemics and Mental Health
The Psychosocial Aspects of Health Emergencies, Incidents, Disasters and Disease Outbreaks
 , pp. 411 - 416
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2024

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