How resilience affected public health research during COVID-19 and why we should abandon it

Abstract

Resilience has accompanied the COVID-19 pandemic as a rallying motto, with calls by governments for a resilient society, resilient families and schools, and, of course, resilient healthcare systems in the face of this unprecedented pandemic shock. Resilience had already gained traction as an analytical concept in public health research for approximately a decade. It became a key concept despite the recognition of its lack of conceptual consistency. The COVID-19 pandemic presented itself as a perfect test-case and encouraged a multiplicity of studies on resilience and health care systems. In this commentary, we add to the existing critiques of resilience in the social sciences by reflecting on the effects of resilience when used to frame empirical inquiries and to draw lessons from the crisis. Resilience as a concept is unable to address crucial structural issues that health systems already faced throughout the world, and it remains a non-neutral political notion. We argue that we need to resist a generalised view of resilience and work with alternative imaginaries.

Keywords: COVID-19; Resilience; adaptation; public health; social sciences.