Available online: https://pub.norden.org/nord2021-032/ While the Nordic countries have long been champions of equality, the Covid-19 pandemic has put a new light on societal structural injustices inherent in our societies. The pandemic thus reveals and reminds us about the serious effects of segregation and unequal societies, and necessitates a closer look at the potential injustice involved. This study aims to identify structural barriers involved in following recommendations from Public Health Authorities during the pandemic, especially in socio-economically vulnerable, low-income districts. Learning about these circumstances will help Nordic societies be better prepared for future challenges and crises

Available online: https://pub.norden.org/nord2021-050/ Nordic countries have been affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, which has taken a substantial toll on economic growth and employment level. Immigrants may have been disproportionately affected, even though Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden already face serious challenges in integrating immigrants into their labour markets for several years. This report aims to make a contribution to further research into the consequences of the pandemic.

This book offers a unique and timely contribution, informed by responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, to unpack the intertwined challenges that planning needs to cope with in the future. It argues that the pandemic and post-pandemic periods, in their successive waves of restrictions and social distancing, have disrupted ‘normal’ practices but have also contributed to shaping a ‘new normal’. The new normal is emerging, re-configuring, and prioritizing the substantive objects of planning and its governance and participatory processes. This book discusses this shift and presents a collection of episodes and cases from diverse European urban contexts to develop a new vocabulary for describing and addressing challenges, models, perspectives, and imaginaries that contribute to defining the new normal. The book is aimed at scholars interested in urban planning, sociology, geography, anthropology, art, economy, technology studies, design studies, and political science.

When communities face complex public health emergencies, state local, tribal, and territorial public health agencies must make difficult decisions regarding how to effectively respond. The public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR) system, with its multifaceted mission to prevent, protect against, quickly respond to, and recover from public health emergencies, is inherently complex and encompasses policies, organizations, and programs. Since the events of September 11, 2001, the United States has invested billions of dollars and immeasurable amounts of human capital to develop and enhance public health emergency preparedness and infrastructure to respond to a wide range of public health threats, including infectious diseases, natural disasters, and chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear events. Despite the investments in research and the growing body of empirical literature on a range of preparedness and response capabilities and functions, there has been no national-level, comprehensive review and grading of evidence for public health emergency preparedness and response practices comparable to those utilized in medicine and other public health fields. Evidence-Based Practice for Public Health Emergency Preparedness and Response reviews the state of the evidence on PHEPR practices and the improvements necessary to move the field forward and to strengthen the PHEPR system. This publication evaluates PHEPR evidence to understand the balance of benefits and harms of PHEPR practices, with a focus on four main areas of PHEPR: engagement with and training of community-based partners to improve the outcomes of at-risk populations after public health emergencies; activation of a public health emergency operations center; communication of public health alerts and guidance to technical audiences during a public health emergency; and implementation of quarantine to reduce the spread of contagious illness.