Talk:Issues in Interdisciplinarity 2020-21/Evidence in Covid-19 Vaccine Distribution

Summary of Meeting 1 (20/11/2020 1:00PM GMT)
In Attendance: Ling Ling, Alexia, Jeanne (Nicola joined the meeting halfway)

General Discussion

-clarified the four marking rubrics and the limit of word count

-compared a few examples in past years

Brainstorming

No one showed interest on History. We think that Evidence and Truth are two issues which come quite similarly when being reflected in the sources available.

Alexia proposed the idea of “Power of technology in fashion industry”, which the other two group members found interesting. Disciplines like Computer science, Art design and Economics could be considered.

some ideas were discussed: the discipline of Economics tends to be dominated by males, whereas art design is like a field involving more females, power dynamics somehow may arise between economists and art designers in the form of ideological clashes

Ling Ling mentioned some possible angles for investigation e.g. how the development of fashion industry may impact on economic sustainability in long-term, see fashion design from the lens of economists

Nicola gave us some useful advice:

1. We should choose an interdisciplinary topic, which could be valuable in some sense.

2. The topic chosen is just like one tool being employed to identify and analyse the nature of Power in that specific context. We may look at fashion simply as one industry.

3. Power as an issue is very tricky. If writing about it, we need to dissect how it is manifested in one of the four forms that we learned from the lectures, and cannot use it simply as one word in day-to-day contexts.

Lily0212 (discuss • contribs) 01:47, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Summary of Discussion in WhatsApp Group
Ling Ling rethought the old topic and came up with another new one as the following.

Topic: How to decide the ways of Covid-19 vaccine distribution to maximise social welfare?

Interdisciplinary issue: Evidence

Disciplines: Economics, Biology, Sociology

Experts in different disciplines have differing conceptions of Evidence and prioritised disciplinary perspectives.

==> clashes [But we need to be careful to only write about the differences in their ways of approaching, constructing and understanding knowledge, which makes the thing arguable.]

-subconscious bias in collecting and analysing evidence

Biology

-infection systems in human body, electronic image e.g. the older and certain groups are more vulnerable to the epidemic, should be given priority

Economics

-collect data and construct models, maximise social welfare, make assumptions

-may emphasise on the importance of young people as workforce to economic growth and development

-ignore the role of social factors e.g. the implications of culture and social beliefs on consumers’ behaviour

-maximize utility

Sociology

-based on other various social theories

-different research methods e.g. take interviews

Final conclusion: when combining together to facilitate government policy decision making…

We discussed this both online and in the seminar, and decided to switched to this topic and work on Evidence as the issue.

Regarding to our new topic, Nicola gave us these suggestions:

1. should emphasise on Evidence (talk about how multiple disciplines gather evidence, this discipline uses evidence like this and that discipline uses evidence like that)

2. how to structure the Chapter: many possible ways of formatting (traditional essay style; other creative ones)

Lily0212 (discuss • contribs) 02:04, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

Summary of Meeting 2 & Meeting 3
In Attendance: Ling Ling, Alexia, Jeanne

It appeared difficult to find much evidence used by different disciplines on COVID-19 vaccine distribution to support our arguments. So we decided to work on Truth as an issue.

We shared the links to check out:

Epidemiology, Health: Check this book out: Qualitative methods for health research, J. Green, N. Thorogood https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/e7ca/dda07e4076073cf3f6777b73800492f878f5.pdf?_ga=2.187360104.1169024446.1606655436-1485175133.1603165432

Published by the School of Public Health Interim Framework for COVID-19 Vaccine Allocation and Distribution in the United States (centerforhealthsecurity.org)

Economics A Covid-19 Vaccine Will Need Equitable, Global Distribution (hbr.org)

Economics https://econlife.com/2020/05/covid-19-vaccine-distribution-dilemmas/

Report from the US department of Health about the vaccine distribution plan, Operation Warp Speed (OWS) https://www.hhs.gov/sites/default/files/strategy-for-distributing-covid-19-vaccine.pdf It says for example that the distribution has to be ‘equitable’

The definition of “public health” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_health (we get many useful insights from this definition)

Chapter title: Truth in Distributing COVID-19 Vaccines

Disciplines: Epidemiology, Economics, Sociology

Potential 5-part structure

1. Introduction - Ling Ling and Alexia

2. Epidemiology (hard science) - Alexia

3. Economics (social science) - Ling Ling

4. Sociology (social science) - Jeanne

5. Conclusion (potential clashes): Public health practice, policy makers - work together

Final edit: work together

Ways to think about Truth (use the following two rules to guide us when writing on the three disciplines)

1. How they construct truth

2. How what they believe to be true may not be true when they are trying to reflect the complex real-world situation (pros and cons of “truth”?)

Issue should be related to the disciplines, instead of the topic, the topic is just used like the excuse.

Ling Ling proposed the working timeline which the other group members also agree on.


 * Finish the 1st draft (work on individual parts): by the end of Friday Dec 4


 * Edit on others’ paragraphs: by the end of Tuesday Dec 8

--> do research and read articles on other parts, the references we found and put here


 * Final edit and improvement on the whole Chapter: by the end of Sunday Dec 13


 * Download and submit the PDF file to Moodle: Dec 14

Lily0212 (discuss • contribs) 14:41, 29 November 2020 (UTC)