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The purpose of this study was to elucidate facilitators and barriers to health system resilience and resilient responses at local and regional levels during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in Finland.

The authors utilized a qualitative research approach and conducted semi-structured interviews (n = 32) with study participants representing five different regions in Finland. Study participants were recruited using purposive and snowball sampling. All study participants had been in management and civil servant positions during the first year of the pandemic, representing municipalities, municipalities' social and healthcare services, hospital districts and regional state administrative agencies. All interviews were completed remotely from April to December 2021 and the recordings transcribed verbatim. The authors coded the transcripts in ATLAS.ti 9.1 using directed content analysis.

The findings highlighted a wide range of localized responses to the pandemic in Finland. Facilitators to health system resilience included active networks of cooperation, crisis anticipation, transitioning into crisis leadership mode, learning how to incorporate new modes of operation, as well as relying on the competencies and motivation of health workforce. The authors found several barriers to health system resilience, including fragmented organization and management particularly in settings where integrated health care systems were not in place, insufficient preparedness to a prolonged crisis, lack of reliable information regarding COVID-19, not having plans in place for crisis communication, pandemic fatigue, and outflux of health workforce to other positions with better compensation and working conditions.

Factors affecting health system resilience are often studied at the aggregate level of a nation. This study offers insights into what resilient responses look like from the perspective of local and regional actors in a decentralized health system. The results highlight that local capacities and context matter greatly for resilience. The authors call for more nuanced analyses on health systems and health system resilience at the sub-national level.

This study aims to help quality professionals in following a precise framework that maintains a company’s performance during health pandemics. In many companies, all quality methods seem to produce performance improvement at different levels, but lean management and kaizen were superior in preparing manufacturing companies to have high readiness levels when faced with a health pandemic.

Which quality method can help businesses in performing well during a health pandemic? In order to answer this question and be able to provide specific recommendations toward performing well in all future health pandemics, 500 manufacturing companies were selected and surveyed. The selected companies are known to use at least one quality method such as lean management, ISO 9001, European foundation for quality management (EFQM) and Six Sigma.

EFQM comes second, then Six Sigma and ISO 9001. Lean creates a healthy workplace and enhances worker's health and well-being. This research helps quality professionals in following a precise framework that maintains performance during health pandemics. Whether the company uses lean or other quality methods, the framework helps in achieving pandemic readiness status. The framework is implemented in a company that does not currently use lean. Implementation resulted in significant improvement in pandemic preparedness, corporate performance and employee well-being.

After the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, all companies should start thinking of creating a workplace that functions well during pandemics. To do that, companies should start including sanitation and health pandemic preparedness as part of their performance measurements. Using lean management and kaizen helps organizations to create a healthy workplace; clean and equipped with smaller number of workers. If organizations choose to use other quality methods, it is okay, but they should enhance these methods with lean tools such as elimination of the seven wastes, gemba, 5S and visual management.

This research explores approaches to, impacts of and reflections on the Covid-19 pandemic for professional communicators in the English National Health Service. It was undertaken in order to understand and analyse their lived experience and make recommendations for improving future system-wide performance.

Given the work pressure and additional commitments that communication practitioners have when working in crisis, the researchers chose a single data collection method. Qualitative and quantitative data collection was undertaken using an extensive self-completion survey instrument.

Ten distinct themes covering four time phases: crisis preparedness, entering the crisis, pandemic peak and post “first-wave” are discussed. They examine crisis readiness, to shifts in priorities and communication approaches to system-wide leadership and integration and the re-positioning of communication as a central player in pandemics.

The research outlines a number of areas for improvement along with practical recommendations for actions in the health system in readiness for future pandemics.

This is the first time the lived experience of communicators working through a pandemic at all levels in a national health system has been researched in the public relations literature.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic created heavy pressure on firms, by increasing the challenges and disruptions that they have to deal with on being sustainable. For this purpose, it is aimed to reveal the role of the smart circular supply chain (SCSC) and its enablers towards achieving Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) for post-pandemic preparedness.

Total interpretive structural modelling and Matrice d'Impacts Croises Multipication Applique' a un Classement (MICMAC) have been applied to analyse the SCSC enablers which are supported by the natural-based resource view in Turkey's food industry. In this context, industry experts working in the food supply chain (meat sector) and academics came together to interpret the result and discuss the enablers that the supply chain experienced during the pandemic for creating a realistic framework for post-pandemic preparedness.

The results of this study show that “governmental support” and “top management involvement” are the enablers that have the most driving power on other enablers, however, none of them depend on any other enablers.

The identification of the impact and role of enablers in achieving SDGs by combining smart and circular capabilities in the supply chain for the post-pandemic.

Responding to the needs of homeless and marginally housed persons has been a major component of the Canadian federal and provincial responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, smaller, less-resourced cities and rural regions have been left competing for limited resources (Schiff et al., 2020). The purpose of this paper is to use a case study to examine and highlight information about the capacities and needs of service hub cities during pandemics.

The authors draw on the experience of Thunder Bay – a small city in Northern Ontario, Canada which experienced a serious outbreak of COVID-19 amongst homeless persons and shelter staff in the community. The authors catalogued the series of events leading to this outbreak through information tracked by two of the authors who hold key funding and planning positions within the Thunder Bay homeless sector.

Several lessons may be useful for other cities nationally and internationally of similar size, geography and socio-economic position. The authors suggest a need for increased supports to the homeless sector in small service–hub cities (and particularly those with large Indigenous populations) to aid in the creation of pandemic plans and more broadly to ending chronic homelessness in those regions.

Small hub cities such as Thunder Bay serve vast rural areas and may have high rates of homelessness. This case study points to some important factors for consideration related to pandemic planning in these contexts.

The purpose of this paper is to assess how college students received and responded to H1N1 pandemic emergency preparedness information and to assess college students’ knowledge and attitudes towards H1N1 during the height of the H1N1 epidemic and corresponding public health response to the outbreak.

Using a case study approach, the researchers conducted five focus groups at a large Southeastern US university between October 20‐29, 2009.

In order to effectively communicate emergency preparedness information to college students, universities should rely on interpersonal communication and mediated communication from trusted sources. College students need to understand the health‐related emergency, the risk of the emergency, basic steps to avoid it, and only pertinent cues to action. Oversaturation of this information can lead college students to lessen their perceived importance of the disaster prevention information.

Focus groups were conducted during only two consecutive weeks of the H1N1 epidemic, and snowball sampling may have led to sample bias.

This research was conducted during the height of the H1N1 pandemic, and is the only study to date that explores college students’ knowledge, attitudes, and behaviors towards H1N1.

Purpose: While COVID-19 has upended lives, it has also catalyzed innovation with potential to advance health delivery. Yet, we know little about how the delivery system, and primary care in particular, has responded and how this has impacted vulnerable patients. We aimed to understand the impact of COVID-19 on primary care practice sites and their vulnerable patients and to identify explanations for variation. Approach: We developed and administered a survey to practice managers and physician leaders from 173 primary care practice sites, October-November 2020. We report and graphically depict results from univariate analysis and examine potential explanations for variation in practices' process innovations in response to COVID-19 by assessing bivariate relationships between seven dependent variables and four independent variables. Findings: Among 96 (55.5%) respondents, primary care practice sites on average took more safety (8.5 of 12) than financial (2.5 of 17) precautions in response to COVID-19. Practice sites varied in their efforts to protect patients with vulnerabilities, providing care initially postponed, and experience with virtual visits. Financial risk, practice size, practitioner age, and emergency preparedness explained variation in primary care practices' process innovations. Many practice sites plan to sustain virtual visits, dependent mostly on patient and provider preference and continued reimbursement. Value: While findings indicate rapid and substantial innovation, conditions must enable primary care practice sites to build on and sustain innovations, to support care for vulnerable populations, including those with multiple chronic conditions and socio-economic barriers to health, and to prepare primary care for future emergencies.

The purpose of this paper is to review the federal decisions to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) response in the United States and consider the different approaches employed by the California state government.

This paper focuses on COVID-19-related issues, responses and implications in federal countries, and largely draws comparisons between the Trump Administration and California state.

The slow response of the federal government could have been avoided, had there been a current and tested national plan. The defunding of the Office of Pandemics and Emerging Threats, and the lack of coordination between the Trump Administration and the states have contributed to its ranking as the country with the highest COVID-19 infection and fatality rates worldwide. California state oversaw an effective initial pandemic response, which was ultimately undermined by a lack of national support and the refusal of some citizens to comply with the restrictions.

The paper draws upon open-source information published on government websites and news media.

As the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is currently ongoing, information about the federal governance and state response is still evolving. The authors examine California as a state exemplar, since it is the largest such jurisdiction by populace and the first state to issue statewide mandatory lockdown measures. This comparison offers insights as to the decisive initiatives that could have occurred at the federal level. The “lessons learned” highlight the critical role of crisis leadership in societal and public health preparedness for future pandemic events.

This study aims to present and discuss the international library and information community’s initial responses to the coronavirus pandemic. It chronicles official statements from various library and information associations as they were released in real-time, thereby providing a contemporary and historical snapshot of the early stages of this global health crisis. The aim is to both historically and thematically contextualize these initial responses to help establish a foundation upon which to anchor, build, extend and analyze approaches to the pandemic as it unfolded (and indeed as it continues to unfold at the time of this writing in June 2020).

Drawing upon a qualitative documentary analysis of statements on COVID-19 released by various international library and information associations, this study provides a thematic analysis of these contemporary policies. Specifically, this thematic analysis was carried out to identify and illuminate major themes appearing within the statements. Further, a comparative thematic analysis was then undertaken to compare the themes across all statements to discover and determine convergences or divergences in content and coverage.

The formal statements released by these organizations feature and share many similar themes in their initial responses to COVID-19, including support for/solidarity with libraries; information provision; maintaining services; digital migration of services; workplace arrangements/concerns; contextual contingencies of libraries (diversity of kinds, circumstances and challenges); health concerns and proper/good hygiene; countering dis/misinformation; external collaborations with public health agencies; and partnerships with industry including publishers.

Although this study’s purview is admittedly limited in size and scope – involving six, albeit major, library and information associations from mainly English speaking countries – it can be used as a foundation for further studies into how libraries and information centres in other English and non-English speaking countries responded to the coronavirus pandemic.

This study can help inform current, alternative, contingency or other future library responses geared towards or tailored for the coronavirus or other health-related crises. It can also be used as a baseline to track the trajectory of library responses and actions as they unfolded throughout the COVID-19 crisis.

By providing the start of an account and analysis of the international library and information science (LIS) community’s initial responses, this study also contributes to the broader (ongoing) conversation about the coronavirus pandemic and intervenes in emerging historical examinations of this crisis. This study could be of interest to LIS scholars and practitioners, in addition to public health researchers, public policymakers, cultural studies academics and historians, interested in how different and intersectional efforts – in this case, the international LIS community – contributed and can contribute to this pandemic and other similar or parallel crises.

The international library and information community’s initial responses to this global health crisis are contextualized, thereby serving as a foundation upon which to anchor, build and extend other research on responses to the pandemic as it unfolded. Drawing upon a qualitative documentary analysis of these statements, this study presents and discusses the international library community’s initial responses to the coronavirus pandemic. It chronicles these statements as they were released in real-time, thereby providing a contemporary and historical snapshot of the early stages of this crisis. The aim is to both historically and thematically contextualize the international library and information community’s initial responses to help establish a foundation upon which to anchor, build, extend and update the international library community’s responses to the pandemic as it unfolded (and indeed as it continues to unfold at the time of this writing in June 2020). This foundation, it is hoped, will help illuminate their respective positions, circumstances, convergences, divergences and areas of possible (future) cooperation, coordination and collaboration.