Social scientist Kees Boersma is Work Package Leader in the EU H2020 Health Emergency Response in interconnected Systems (HERoS) project. This project focuses on the development of a more integrated approach with better coordination between administration, information provision and logistics. Traditional models of disease outbreaks tend to focus solely on statistics and infection rates. “We need new methods to recognise resilient behaviour from the bottom up,” Boersma says. “For example, within crisis management little attention is paid to initiatives that citizens develop themselves, such as a neighbourhood shopping service for elderly people.”
One of Boersma’s aims is to highlight the importance of governments adopting a more integrated approach, in which information provision, administration, logistics and citizens are better attuned. “If we want to tackle the global crisis in a coordinated, inclusive way, we need a differentiated response, based on an understanding of local behavioural patterns of populations, health professionals and support organizations.”
HERoS is coordinated by the Hanken School of Economics (the Humanitarian Logistics and Supply Chain Research Institute) in Finland. It is a collaboration of 11 partners, including Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam.
