TheCOVID-19 pandemic, perhaps like no other major event in recent memory, has exposed the synergies as well as the tensions between science and policy.Atthestart of thepandemic, governments immediately turned to scientists for the data, knowledge,andtechnology necessary to fight thenew virus.Science provided increasing clarityabout the rapidly evolving pandemic, however,governmentsrelied on scientific adviceto various degrees.The publictherefore may haveheard different messages from scientists and policymakers. As a result, countries’success in containing the pandemicvaried greatly,even in a relatively homogenous region like Latin America.
Sciencecan be limited byuncertainties,and policy can be influenced by politics.But scientists and policymakershave the potential toimprove outcomes through better collaboration and more coordinatedmessagingtothe public.
Different Roles of Science and Policy
The scientific response to the pandemic has been remarkable. Within weeks of theemergence of thenew disease, the coronavirus genome had been sequenced. Within months, multiple tests forCOVID-19 infection had been released. Within a year,highly effectivevaccines had been developed and proven safe. Other features of the disease, however,haveremainedpoorlyunderstood, such ashow long immunity lasts and thefactors behind virus mutations.The scientific process is not without pitfalls,either.In the first half of 2020, scientific papers onCOVID-19 doubled every 14 days.Theexplosion of pandemic-related research made it impracticable to critically reviewall contributionsintheaccumulatingbody of evidence. A case in point is theretractionof research articles on the drug hydroxychloroquine published in the prestigious medical journalsTheLancetandNew England Journal of Medicine, after it was found that the data was flawed.
Even when science providesclearand timelyanswersabout fightingdisease,itcannot make value judgments, such as who shouldbe prioritized forvaccination, or how long lockdowns should last.These difficult decisionsremainthe realm of policy. As Geoffrey Rose, one of the fathers of modern epidemiology said, while the best science should help informpolicy, “in a democracy the ultimate responsibility for decisions on health policy should lie with the public.”
Public officialsoftenneed to act under incomplete information about the consequences of policy options. They do sobasedon the values and priorities of the public they represent.Importantly, theyneed to communicatewiththe publicinsimple and cleartermseventhoughthe sciencemay besubject touncertainties. Especially in health policy, there is widespread consensus that a clear line should be drawn between scientific findings and policy measures.In this way, scientists remain insulated from political pressure,preservingthe integrity of the scientific process.Policymakers, meanwhile,cannot place the responsibility for their decisions onscience butremain directly answerable to the voterswhoelected them.
Improving Science-PolicyCollaboration
In a January 2021articleinScience, researchers from Northwestern University reported that the fraction of policy documents that cited recent high-quality peer-reviewed scientific researchgraduallyincreased as the pandemicevolved.Inter-governmental organizationsthat coordinate global actionled this trend, with 40% of their policy documents citing science.National governmentsshowed more variation. Countries like Germany put alargeremphasis on science. About 10% of Latin American government documents cited science,a ratecomparable to the world average. Thus,scientific advances are being heard, althoughto different degrees.As a result,national policy approaches and death rates have varied significantly.
How can scientists and policymakerscollaboratebetterto generate evidence-basedpolicy solutions that aremore readily incorporated intonational policy?
Improvedcollaboration between science and policy is a two-way effort.From the science side,research needs to generatesolutions that aremore practically applicable and easier to implement. During 2020,health policy facultyat Columbia University led the development of a rating system for evaluating scientific evidence for policy decisions. The ratings range from theoretical (lowest level) to impact (highest level). The latter rating is assigned to research that has been tested, replicated, and validated, thus ready to apply in the real world.
Policy decisions involve tradeoffs, for example “health vs.wealth” considerations in fighting the pandemic.Quantifying these tradeoffs is difficult. Itoftenrequires inter-disciplinary research, which is not as common as it should be.For their part, policymakers can benefit from scientific advice but for different reasonsdo notalwaysact onit. One is political considerations. In a recentpaper, researchers at New York Universityanalyzed data from 65 countries and found that incumbents who faced reelection during the pandemic adopted less restrictive containment measures, particularlythosewith negative economic impactssuch as lockdowns. Another consideration is that many countries, particularly poorerones,simplylack the capacity to enforce public health measures such as mask wearing and social distancing.These are hard constraints on policy that cannot be easily overcome without strong institutions,effective leadership, and state capacity.
Public Attitudesand Compliance
It should not go unnoticed that the success of many pandemic-related policiesalsodepends on the public’s compliance with government-issued guidelines.The IDBResearch Departmentdeveloped informationalandbehavioralinterventionsto increase the salience and facilitate the widespread adoption of health recommendations.But public complianceultimatelydepends on the public’s trust in these recommendations. In some countries, the public witnessed open friction between health experts and political decisionmakers. Mixed messagesonsocial media have also contributed to confusion or misinformation.A recentnine-countrysurveyby researchers at the University of Pennsylvaniafoundthat public trust in sciencewasat least as high astrust in governmentnearly everywhere. Some of the largest gaps between trust in science and trust in governmentwere in Colombia and Mexico, whereas some of the smallest were in Germany and South Korea, where policy and science were more aligned.
Ideally, science and government should work together smoothly to improve public policy. And consequently, citizens should view the two domains as complementary, rather than antagonistic. Science has responded remarkably to the current pandemic but could make its contributions more directly relevant to policy. Policymakers have paid close attention to the science but have not always followed its recommendations. Finally, both scientists and policymakers could better coordinate their public communications to instill public trust in the policies adopted. This should improve voluntary compliance and bring about the intended policy impact.
