5th ISA Forum of Sociology (6-11 July 2025)

According to many public health experts, we are now living in an age of recurrent pandemics. This session will consider the adequacy of current public health planning and preparedness for future pandemics—ones of equal or greater magnitude to the COVID-19 pandemic. The latest pandemic highlighted many failures of pandemic governance, including risk management and the generation of global inequalities; for example, in access to vaccines and other resources needed to manage infections and prevent disease and death. The session will draw lessons from COVID-19 and other pandemics and epidemics for public health in the future, including the adequacy of international bodies such as the WHO and the UN whose failures were all too evident in the three years of COVID-19.