The Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy

The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an extraordinary challenge for public health and health policy. Questions have arisen concerning the main strategies to cope with this situation and the lessons to be learned from the pandemic. This conceptual paper aims to clarify these questions via sociological con...

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Autores principales:	Holger Pfaff, Jochen Schmitt
Formato:	article
Lenguaje:	EN
Publicado:	Frontiers Media S.A. 2021
Materias:	evidence-based health policy mechanistic vs. organic knowledge processing experts COVID-19 theory agile science Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270
Acceso en línea:	https://doaj.org/article/09d008c9512849b3b4681b50ae36e2b9
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spelling	oai:doaj.org-article:09d008c9512849b3b4681b50ae36e2b92021-11-30T16:38:10ZThe Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy2296-256510.3389/fpubh.2021.727427https://doaj.org/article/09d008c9512849b3b4681b50ae36e2b92021-11-01T00:00:00Zhttps://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2021.727427/fullhttps://doaj.org/toc/2296-2565The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an extraordinary challenge for public health and health policy. Questions have arisen concerning the main strategies to cope with this situation and the lessons to be learned from the pandemic. This conceptual paper aims to clarify these questions via sociological concepts. Regarding coping strategies used during the pandemic, there is a strong tendency for health policymakers to rely on expert knowledge rather than on evidence-based knowledge. This has caused the evidence-based healthcare community to respond to urgent demands for advice by rapidly processing new knowledge. Nonetheless, health policymakers still mainly rely on experts in making policy decisions. Our sociological analysis of this situation identified three lessons for coping with pandemic and non-pandemic health challenges: (1) the phenomenon of accelerating knowledge processing could be interpreted from the organizational innovation perspective as a shift from traditional mechanistic knowledge processing to more organic forms of knowledge processing. This can be described as an “organic turn.” (2) The return of experts is part of this organic turn and shows that experts provide both evidence-based knowledge as well as theoretical, experiential, and contextual knowledge. (3) Experts can use theory to expeditiously provide advice at times when there is limited evidence available and to provide complexity-reducing orientation for decisionmakers at times where knowledge production leads to an overload of knowledge; thus, evidence-based knowledge should be complemented by theory-based knowledge in a structured two-way interaction to obtain the most comprehensive and valid recommendations for health policy.Holger PfaffJochen SchmittFrontiers Media S.A.articleevidence-based health policymechanistic vs. organic knowledge processingexpertsCOVID-19theoryagile sciencePublic aspects of medicineRA1-1270ENFrontiers in Public Health, Vol 9 (2021)
institution	DOAJ
collection	DOAJ
language	EN
topic	evidence-based health policy mechanistic vs. organic knowledge processing experts COVID-19 theory agile science Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270
spellingShingle	evidence-based health policy mechanistic vs. organic knowledge processing experts COVID-19 theory agile science Public aspects of medicine RA1-1270 Holger Pfaff Jochen Schmitt The Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy
description	The COVID-19 pandemic has posed an extraordinary challenge for public health and health policy. Questions have arisen concerning the main strategies to cope with this situation and the lessons to be learned from the pandemic. This conceptual paper aims to clarify these questions via sociological concepts. Regarding coping strategies used during the pandemic, there is a strong tendency for health policymakers to rely on expert knowledge rather than on evidence-based knowledge. This has caused the evidence-based healthcare community to respond to urgent demands for advice by rapidly processing new knowledge. Nonetheless, health policymakers still mainly rely on experts in making policy decisions. Our sociological analysis of this situation identified three lessons for coping with pandemic and non-pandemic health challenges: (1) the phenomenon of accelerating knowledge processing could be interpreted from the organizational innovation perspective as a shift from traditional mechanistic knowledge processing to more organic forms of knowledge processing. This can be described as an “organic turn.” (2) The return of experts is part of this organic turn and shows that experts provide both evidence-based knowledge as well as theoretical, experiential, and contextual knowledge. (3) Experts can use theory to expeditiously provide advice at times when there is limited evidence available and to provide complexity-reducing orientation for decisionmakers at times where knowledge production leads to an overload of knowledge; thus, evidence-based knowledge should be complemented by theory-based knowledge in a structured two-way interaction to obtain the most comprehensive and valid recommendations for health policy.
format	article
author	Holger Pfaff Jochen Schmitt
author_facet	Holger Pfaff Jochen Schmitt
author_sort	Holger Pfaff
title	The Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy
title_short	The Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy
title_full	The Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy
title_fullStr	The Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy
title_full_unstemmed	The Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy
title_sort	organic turn: coping with pandemic and non-pandemic challenges by integrating evidence-, theory-, experience-, and context-based knowledge in advising health policy
publisher	Frontiers Media S.A.
publishDate	2021
url	https://doaj.org/article/09d008c9512849b3b4681b50ae36e2b9
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The Organic Turn: Coping With Pandemic and Non-pandemic Challenges by Integrating Evidence-, Theory-, Experience-, and Context-Based Knowledge in Advising Health Policy

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