Rethinking Public Health Approaches to Crisis Response: Putting People First

This commentary is written by the co-editors of the Collection entitled "Rethinking Public Health Approaches to Crisis Response: Putting People First". Specifically, in the call for submissions, we welcomed articles that detailed the actions, experiences, models, and mechanisms of involvement of community members and local knowledge in response to any clearly defined public health crisis, as a manifestation of how health systems are "putting people first". This commentary is a reflection on the seven papers eventually accepted for that Collection. The papers cover diverse settings, from South Korea and Saudi Arabia to sub-Saharan Africa and a variety of conflict settings. Collectively, these papers show a continuing gap in scholarship that convincingly progresses our thinking on approaches to achieve a people-centred public health crisis response. Nonetheless, the papers identify specific examples of local actions, including generating community trust for preventative actions and experiential learning in emergency care, showing how community involvement influences government legitimacy, intervention feasibility and societal recovery. Two papers present critical challenges for us: to build trust at the grass-roots level and to use health as a peacebuilding tool. These papers extend our understanding of the epidemic response beyond the conventional global health security paradigms and underscore the importance of shifting to a new paradigm that is people-centred and peace-led as the best way to protect future generations and their health. At a time of huge funding cuts to global health and development, and shifting political commitments to international solidarity, local citizen-led action to re-imagine health and well-being beyond security and national interest becomes simultaneously more challenging and crucial than ever before.