Pandemic Prevention and Global Governance
Evaluating the Governance of Emergent Pandemic Zoonoses
Coordinated governance is critical to prevent future pandemics. We need actionable evidence that focuses on the regulation of wildlife trade from which SARS and SARS-CoV-2 are believed to have emerged.
Connecting the social, legal and cultural dynamics that affect the regulation of wildlife trade in countries where zoonotic epidemics and pandemics emerged is needed.
Our research evaluates the governance gap in stewardship of international wildlife trade and implications for food and health security by analyzing the intersection of global biodiversity, environmental, agricultural and public governance systems.
About the Project
The purpose of this project is to evaluate the governance gap in stewardship of international wildlife trade supply chains given their implications for food and health security. We aim to analyze the intersection of global biodiversity, environmental, agricultural and public health governance systems to more comprehensively assess the institutionalization of One Health principles. Using insights and methods from complexity science, we leverage local knowledge and expertise to explore new coordinated governance solutions for local food and wildlife.
We answer the following research questions using a solutions-oriented approach with multiple methods and disciplinary lens:
- How can the global health, biodiversity, trade and environmental governance systems be better coordinate to break the causal link between zoonotic diseases and wildlife trade?
- How might changes in the local food and wildlife systems interact with governance systems to impact on livelihoods, cultural practices and food security?
- What are the policy design solutions needed to implement the emergent evidence from the institutional, legal and systems analysis?
At the global-level, we conducted an institutional and legal epidemiology analysis that will provide policy surveillance and mapping of international and national governance of the wildlife trade.
At the local-level, a systems analysis was used to identify local contextual interdependencies among laws, regulations, and their implications for the behaviour of social and political actors and communities supplemented by in-depth qualitative case studies. We focused our research on international governance institutions that set guidelines for national stewardship of biodiversity, the environment, agriculture and public health with implications for the regulation of wildlife trade within three case study countries: China, the Philippines and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Across the project, evidence from the global and local levels was synthesized using a design thinking approach. Evidence briefs and a project narrative was developed to integrate evidence across the project. We are exploring participatory design thinking approaches to engage stakeholders in developing actionable policy recommendations using evidence narratives from the project.
Project Team
Principal Investigators
Tarra Penney, PhD
Co-Principal Investigator & Research Lead – Systems Analysis
tpenney@yorku.ca
Dr. Tarra Penney is a population health scientist focused on the prevention of disease at the global level. She is an assistant professor of Global Food Systems and Policy Research, an investigator with the Global Strategy Lab and a member of the Dahdaleh institute for Global Health Research at York University. Working with national and international organizations, her research utilizes systems thinking and multiple methods to generate observational and evaluative evidence to understand the context and tackle some of our biggest global challenges including food insecurity, emergence of zoonoses, anti-microbial resistance and the related consequences of climate change.
Mary Wiktorowicz, PhD
Prof. Mary Wiktorowicz is a Professor of Global Health Governance and Policy, Associate Director of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research, and a member of the WHO Collaborating Centre on the Global Governance of Antimicrobial resistance (AMR). She adopts a global and comparative lens to study the governance of AMR with a focus on identifying strategies to improve governance of antimicrobial stewardship. As a member of the Global One Health Network (global1HN.ca) she further assesses the global governance of deep pandemic prevention through approaches that support the prevention of zoonotic emergence including regulation of wildlife trade.
Research Team
Dr. Kirsten Leeis a Post-Doctoral Fellow with Global Food System & Policy Research in the School of Global Health at York University and member of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research. She is funded by a CIHR Research Excellence, Diversity, and Independence Award and completed a CIHR Health System Impact Fellowship with the Public Health Agency of Canada. Her research uses systems thinking to inform policies that aim to promote healthy, sustainable, and equitable food systems. She is exploring participatory co-design methods to create impactful evidence narratives across the project and inform policy and governance solutions for pandemic prevention.
A.M. Viens, PhD
Co-Investigator & Research Lead – Legal Epidemiology Analysis
amviens@yorku.ca
Dr. Adrian M. Viens is the Inaugural Director of the School of Global Health and York Research Chair in Population Health Ethics and Law at York University. He has degrees in philosophy and law from the Universities of Toronto, Oxford, and London. His research specialization focuses on population health (i.e., public health and global health) ethics and law, with a particular interest in demonstrating how philosophical analysis, legal epidemiology, and regulatory theory should shape how we approach different issues within global health policy, practice, and research, such as infectious diseases, disasters and emergencies, and health promotion.
Angran Li, PhD
Dr. Angran Li is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at NYU Shanghai. Before joining NYU Shanghai, he was an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Zhejiang University. Broadly defined, Angran’s research examines mechanisms through which social, spatial, and temporal contexts, independently or jointly, lead to the inequality of parental practices and educational outcomes. He explores how those relationships affect intergenerational transmission of advantages/disadvantages across social groups and national contexts from a comparative perspective.
Cary Wu, PhD
Co-Investigator & Research Lead – China
carywu@yorku.ca
Dr. Cary Wu is an Assistant Professor of sociology at York University. His research focuses on political culture, race and ethnicity, and health inequality. His work focuses on the significance of promoting public awareness of One Health and share survey findings concerning the level and distribution of One Health awareness among the general public in China. He has published widely on these topics and often shares his research with the public via national and international TV, radio, and newspaper forums including NPR, CBC, CTV, Washington Post, Toronto Star, Maclean’s, and The Economist.
Marilen Parungao-Balolong, PhD
Research Lead – Philippines
Dr. Marilen Parungao-Balolong was a Professor of Microbiology and Immunology at the Department of Biology and a University Scientist serving as the Associate Dean for Research and Public Service of the College of Arts and Sciences, University of the Philippines Manila. She is a Diplomate of the Philippine Academy for Microbiology, trained as a microbiologist since 1993 starting in UP Los Baños and UP Manila where she obtained the degree in Doctor of Public Heath in Medical Microbiology last 2015.
We acknowledge the substantial contributions of our late and much-missed colleague, Dr. Marilen Parungao-Balolong, to the initiation of the wider project and contributions to the early stages of data collection in the Philippines.
Chloe Clifford Astbury, PhD
castbury@yorku.ca
Dr. Chloe Clifford Astbury is a Research Associate with Global Food System & Policy Research in the School of Global Health at York University, investigator with the Global Strategy Lab and member of the Dahdaleh Institute for Global Health Research. Chloe is interested in the transition to a healthier, fairer and more sustainable food system through integrated food system policy across food production and agriculture, processing, trade and public health. Her current work focuses on the application of systems thinking to food system policy for the prevention of both communicable and non-communicable diseases.
Eduardo Gallo-Cajiao, PhD
Research Lead – Institutional Analysis
e.gallocajiao@colostate.edu
Dr. Eduardo Gallo Cajiaois an Assistant Professor at Colorado State University in the Department of Human Dimensions of Natural Resources. He comes to Fort Collins and CSU by way of the University of Washington in Seattle. His research gravitates towards understanding the governance dimensions of migratory species conservation at various scales, with a particular focus on emergence, effectiveness, agency, social-ecological fit, implementation, dynamics, and institutional complexity.
Shital Desai, PhD
desais@yorku.ca
Dr. Shital Desai is an Assistant Professor in Interaction Design at the School of Arts, Media, Performance & Design and York Research Chair in Accessible Interaction Design at York University. She heads the CFI funded Social and Technological Systems (SaTS) lab where she and her team engages in research that addresses issues that focus on UN Sustainable Development Goals using Design Research methods, Human Centred Design, Systems Design and Speculative Design approaches. To that extent, she co-creates accessible technologies, services and governance policies for marginalised demographics and global health.
Mapatano Mala, PhD
Research Lead – Democratic Republic of Congo
mapatanow@yahoo.fr
Professor Mapatano Mala is a Professor of Epidemiology and Nutrition in the Kinshasa School of Public Health (KSPH) and Director of the National Centre for the Epidemiology of Diabetes (DRC) since April 2004. He received his medical degree from the University of Kinshasa in the Republic Democratic of Congo in 1977 (DRC). From 1986-1993, he attended Tulane University (USA) where he earned a Master and PhD in Public Health. He is a former Deputy Director of the Kinshasa School of Public Health, a former chief of Cabinet of the Ministry of Health, and a former Head of the Department of Nutrition at the KSPH. He served as member of the WHO African Regional Immunization Technical Advisory Group 2016-2018. Since December 2015, he has also been nominated member of the WHO Scientific and Technical Advisory Group on Geographical Yellow Fever Risk Mapping.
Marc Yambayamba, PhD
Research Lead – Democratic Republic of Congo
marc.yambayamba@uzh.ch
Marc Yambayambais a PhD student in epidemiology at the University of Zurich. He completed a MD degree at the University of Kinshasa and obtained an MSc in Epidemiology jointly organized between the University of Lubumbashi School of Veterinary Medicine (DRC) and Mweka College of Wildlife Management and Tourism (Tanzania). Marc is an epidemiologist with a focus on the Global Health Security with 5 years of experience in One health training and research. His research interests lay on disease surveillance, early detection, outbreak response and antimicrobial resistance. To strengthen his wildlife research capacities Marc did an internship at the Tanzania Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI) where he learned disease surveillance at the human-animal interface.
Project Partners, Collaborators, & Research Support
Cécile Aenishaenslin
Co-Investigator & Project Partner
Asma Atique
Post-Doctoral Fellow – Legal Epidemiology Analysis
Dominique Bikaba
Collaborator & Project Partner – Strong Roots Congo
Victoria Cassar
Research Assistant – Legal Epidemiology Analysis
Sibo Chen
Collaborator – China
Katherine Cullerton
Collaborator
Ronald Labonté
Collaborator & Project Partner
James Orbinski
Co-Investigator & Project Partner
Zhilei Shi
Collaborator – China
Kathleen Chelsea Togno
Research Assistant – Philippines
Amy Yau
Collaborator
Russel Aguiar
Research Assistant – Philippines
Katinka de Balogh
Collaborator & Project Partner – Food and Agriculture Organization
Hélène Carabin
Co-Investigator & Project Partner
Bo Chen
Collaborator – China
Janielle Clarke
Research Assistant – Systems Analysis
Anastassia Demeshko
Research Assistant – Systems Analysis
Ryan McLeod
Research Assistant – Institutional Analysis
Arne Ruckert
Project Partner
Krishihan Sivapragasam
Research Assistant – Systems Analysis
Peter Tsasis
Co-Investigator & Project Partner
Zhouyou Wang
Collaborator – China
Funded by:
