Resilience of the Blood Supply in the Face of Cascading Disasters – Results from a Case Study in South Africa
Abstract as pdf
Corresponding Author:
Miriam Nagels
Working Group Interdisciplinary Security Research, Freie Universität Berlin Germany
miriam.nagels@fu-berlin.de
Author(s):
Roman Peperhove1 , Lars Gerhold2 and Alina Winter3
1Working Group Interdisciplinary Security Research, Freie Universität Berlin, Roman.Peperhove@Fu-Berlin.De, DEU
2Working Group Interdisciplinary Security Research, Freie Universität Berlin, Lars.Gerhold@Fu-Berlin.De, DEU
3Working Group Interdisciplinary Security Research, Freie Universität Berlin, Alina.Winter@Fu-Berlin.De, DEU
Blood supply systems are elementary pieces of health-related critical infrastructure. Particularly due to their dependence on blood donors they constantly interact with environmental dynamics and are directly influenced by social and societal developments. As a result, blood supply systems are vulnerable to a variety of external factors that may lead to shortages in blood supply. Such shortages often occur in the wake of disasters and can be considered individual elements of a chain of events generating a cascading effect. As systems and crises become more complex, cascading effects and thus the resilience of critical elements such as blood supply systems play an increasingly significant role. The blood supply system in South Africa is in a particularly well-rehearsed interaction with its environment, given numerous experiences with past crises and challenges, such as epidemics or power outages. In this light, the main research question addressed in this contribution is what factors affect the resilience of the South African blood supply sector in crises and which role does communication play in this regard. Within the contribution, preliminary results from a third-party funded international research project are presented. These results are based on an in-depth literature review and qualitative analysis of primary literature and a current estimate of twenty interviews conducted with disaster management actors and representatives from blood supply services in South Africa. The qualitative analysis draws on assumptions of concepts of resilience from an actor-network theory perspective and selected crisis communication models focusing on a process-view of crises and the interconnection of risk and crisis communication. Findings of a scenario process, which aims at identifying possible consistent courses of crises as well as dependencies on relevant influencing factors, are presented. Besides, results from the analysis of crisis communication at the interface of crisis management actors, blood services and the public are discussed, exploring communication's impact on tackling crises affecting the South African blood supply system. As part of the contribution, the researchers critically reflect on research methods and their role as European researchers working on a phenomenon in the global South while contributing to the discussion of crisis prevention and management in different cultural contexts and addressing a cascading disaster scenario that is not comprehensively investigated within academic literature.
Cascading disasters: how to design resilient crisis-management institutions and organizations?