The Threat of Science-Related Populism to Global Public Health: Lessons from Iran
Taefehshokr, N.; Mertens, B.; Beheshti, I.; Zahedi, R. P.; Los, M. J.; Kindrachuk, J.; Ghavami, S.
Show abstract
This article explores the impact of science-related populism on public health during the COVID-19 pandemic, with a focus on the situation in Iran. Our analysis of publicly available data from The Economist and the World Health Organization demonstrates the consequences of delayed vaccination campaigns, showing a clear correlation between delayed vaccine introduction and increased excess mortality rates. This trend is particularly pronounced in Iran, where political resistance to Western vaccine imports and the promotion of unproven medical technologies exacerbated the public health crisis. Additionally, our time-series analysis links significant surges in COVID-19 deaths to government related events and decisions that likely enhanced virus transmission, indicating direct public health repercussions from delayed pandemic responses. These results highlight the global security threat posed by science-related populism, where political agendas undermine scientific integrity and public health. The findings advocate for an urgent global commitment to uphold scientific evidence as the cornerstone of health policy, emphasizing the necessity of combating misinformation to ensure timely and effective public health measures.
Matching journals
The top 7 journals account for 50% of the predicted probability mass.
Similar papers in this journal
- Projecting the impact of SARS-CoV-2 variants on the COVID-19 epidemic and social restoration in the United States: a mathematical modelling study 93%
- Determinants of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Engagement in Algeria: A Population-based Study with Systematic Review of Studies from Arab Countries of the MENA Region 92%
- When mistrust in the government and scientists reinforce social inequalities in vaccination against Covid-19 92%
Similar papers in this journal
- Age- and gender-dependent differences in attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccination and underlying psychological processes 93%
- Psychological factors underpinning vaccine willingness in Israel, Japan and Hungary 92%
- Digitalization impacts the COVID-19 pandemic and the stringency of government measures 90%
Similar papers in this journal
- Use of large language models as a scalable approach to understanding public health discourse 90%
- Diversity and inclusion: A hidden additional benefit of Open Data 90%
- Inferring Gender from First Names: Comparing the Accuracy of Genderize, Gender API, and the gender R Package on Authors of Diverse Nationality 87%
"Similar papers" are the closest papers from that journal in the model's embedding space. They show what the match is built on, but the ranking comes mostly from a classifier over the whole training set, not from these examples alone.