Who are the relevant individuals in the Boston-based Ebola expert network, and what institutions are they affiliated with? Based on this, which Boston-based institutions feature most prominently in the fight against the pandemic and related education efforts?

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Who are the relevant individuals in the Boston-based Ebola expert network, and what institutions are they affiliated with? Based on this, which Boston-based institutions feature most prominently in the fight against the pandemic and related education efforts?

Background:

The outbreak and escalation of the Ebola pandemic in West Africa has created an immediate and urgent demand for expertise. Given the specific characteristics of the pandemic and the modern interdisciplinary approach to pandemic crisis management, this expertise manifests in a) the medical and healthcare sciences and b) domains outside of the medical field—Anthropology, Communication, Logistics and private funding, to name a few. Similarly, there exists a wide variety of actors and agencies in dire need of these experts, including affected countries, NGOs, government agencies across the globe, supra-national agencies, news outlets and academia.

While the Ebola pandemic has created a distinct need for experts to be employed on the ground in the affected countries, the disease has also attracted an extraordinary amount of attention and interest globally, outside of the primarily affected region. The exponential rate at which the disease has spread through West Africa is certainly alarming, but the level of international interest garnered seems disproportionate to the current death toll or the real threat posed to non-West African countries.

The Boston area is a major global hub for medical and healthcare research. The density of top-notch medical and public health schools; the network of renowned research and non-research hospitals; the sheer number of biotech companies and labs; and the prominence of the international public health -focused non-profit organizations headquartered in the area, all contribute to making Boston an obvious focal point in the hunt for Ebola experts. Indeed, the Boston network has delivered on its potential: A number of prominent Boston-based medical doctors are, or have been, on the ground in West Africa; academics are advising governments and supra-government agencies in the affected region and around the world; and NGOs are deeply involved in providing for those affected.

Considering the rarity of Ebola outbreaks in the past, the limited numbers of deaths it produced in those historic outbreaks and its thus far region-specific appearance, one would assume the number of Ebola experts to be rather limited. However, there appears to be a wealth of expertise available today.

Primary questions:

Who are the leading Ebola experts in the Boston area, and which organizations are they associated with? Is there a concentration of specific skill sets in Boston—for example, Medical Doctors, Anthropologists and Social Network Analysts? Which organizations feature most prominently—and should therefore receive special consideration in terms of resource/funding allocations? Are the experts involved in the research and treatment of Ebola the same experts that are featured on educational panels and in the news media—or is there a discrepancy?

Hypothesis/Other questions to be examined:

Given the opaqueness of the Ebola virus and the scarcity of past outbreaks, I hypothesize that the number of existing experts on the disease is rather limited and that there is a mismatch between the demand for experts and their availability. Focusing on Boston as a major health hub, my analysis will aim to identify the local Ebola experts and map their relationships and connections to institutions like universities, hospitals, NGOs and pharma companies. Equally, this analysis will illuminate the institutions most relevant to the ongoing battle against Ebola.  It will further investigate the void created by the expert demand-supply mismatch, and who is filling this void. Given the severity of the ongoing pandemic, it is surprising that the experts in the Boston area seem to be able to invest considerable time in local public education, mostly in the form of panels. Tufts University alone hosted four Ebola panels within a two-week frame, from Oct 22^nd to Nov 5^th, 2014. Boston has not yet been affected by Ebola, but the public thirst for information and education is immense. Who is satisfying this thirst? Who are the panelists featured across the Boston area? Are they the same experts also serving the current medical needs of affected countries and NGO’s on the ground? Or are they a sub-group or parallel group of the wider expert network? How fragmented, then, is the broader expert network? Does it break down into practitioners and theorists?

Relevance:

As there currently is no proven treatment for or vaccination against Ebola, the current crisis calls for novel and daring approaches. Valuable responses may come from non-traditional health-related fields such as technology, anthropology or Social Network Analysis. The interest in the thematic is broad and there are plenty of innovative minds in the Boston area; new ideas and approaches will certainly be generated, and they must be heard. A social network analysis of the current “experts” will allow the newcomer to quickly connect with relevant nodes and have an impact.

In the arena of public education, the analysis will allow those trying to connect appropriate thinkers to curious audiences, to choose relevant speakers while not hindering ongoing research work.

From both an academic as well as a practical perspective, an investigation of the expert social network in order to identify the institutions in the Boston area which are—or are becoming—hubs for Ebola expertise, is extremely relevant for potential partners and donors. These could be academic institutions, hospitals, labs, pharma/biotech companies, think tanks or media outlets.

Methodology:

I will construct the network primarily through meticulous examination of public records, including media articles, invitations to public education events and research published by local area institutions. I will examine (1) Boston-based individuals who have been identified as experts in some capacity, (2) the category of their exact area of expertise, (3) the particular institution(s) they are affiliated with, (4) a method to categorize those institutions in order to construct a value network (e.g., research university affiliation versus news outlet affiliation), (5) their connections amongst each other, (6) the frequency with which they are featured in the news media, (7) their frequency of appearance on public education panels, and (8) their experience and engagement on the ground in West Africa. From this data collection—enriched by interviews when necessary and appropriate—I will then construct a SNA. Building on my hypothesis, I expect the network to break into three major groups: (1) experts mostly engaged in public education; I expect this network to be well-connected and dense, (2) experts mostly employed on the ground in West Africa; given their lack of engagement in the local Boston area discussion, I expect these experts to be at the periphery of the network, and (3) those in between the two groups, shuttling back and forth between on-the-ground work and public appearance.

In particular, I will focus on the institutions that feature most prominently in this network and tease out their exact role. This will allow outsiders to make best use of this network—whether they seek to pinpoint worthy and effective candidates for donations; to uncover access points for (unconventional) ideas and approaches; or simply to identify specific expertise for research or education efforts.  

It would be intriguing to further construct a network of Ebola experts five years ago and compare it to the current network, with a particular emphasis on investigating what institutions are fueling the (assumed) growth of expertise. However, such a comparative analysis might go beyond the resources and timeframe of this project.

Summary:

Ebola is a golden opportunity for the various benefits of SNA to shine brightly. SNA has proven to be an extremely valuable tool in the fight against a variety of infectious diseases, including pandemics, and it is actively leveraged in the current fight against Ebola. Beyond its utility in fighting the diseases itself, it is a valuable tool for understanding individuals and institutions that offer expertise on Ebola; by mapping those individuals and institutions, SNA enables us to effectively leverage the network of expertise for myriad purposes. My SNA of the Boston Ebola network will facilitate effective and maximum utilization of this Boston network and thus contribute meaningfully in the fight against Ebola and related education efforts.