Wednesday Lunch Talk -- Behavioral Response to China's 2002-03 SARS Epidemic
Presentation by William Mason (Professor of Sociology, UCLA)
Wednesday, November 16, 2005
12:00 PM - 1:30 PM
Bunche 11377
The SARS epidemic of 2002-2003 was notable for the deadliness of the SARS virus, the small number of cases, the ease with which the virus spread, and the apparently pronounced impact the epidemic had on local economies and everyday lives. Our own field work was interrupted by the epidemic. In response, we changed course and, when the epidemic had burned out, went back into the field with a survey adapted to study the epidemic. Our work was carried out in Autumn 2003 and Spring 2004. This talk will summarize our findings, which are that the SARS epidemic precipitated individual as well as socially organized efforts to self-protect. It led to job loss and decreased travel. The response to the epidemic was widespread. There was epidemiologically structured as well as independent socially organized response. Also, the epidemic evoked a response that transcended class and sociodemographic lines, which were largely irrelevant in this instance.
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Professor William B. Mason, and his coauthors -- graduate students Yaqiang Qi, Yao Lu, and Yi Pan -- and with the California Center for Population Research and the Department of Sociology. Yaqing Qi is researching prenatal sex-selective abortion in rural China; Yao Lu, family organization and educational attainment; and Yi Pan, health demography and immigation.
Open to UCLA faculty and students, and others by invitation.
For more information please contact
Richard Gunde
Tel: (310) 825-8683
gunde@ucla.edu
Sponsor(s): Center for Chinese Studies
