The 2019 Global Health Security Index (GHS Index) assessed the US and the UK as the two countries best prepared to address a catastrophic pandemic. The preparedness rankings of this index have had little correlation with the actual experiences of COVID-19 in various countries. In explaining this disrepancy, the paper argues that better indicators and more data would not have fixed the problem. Rather, the prevailing paradigm of global health security that informs instruments such as the GHS Index needs to be interrogated. This dominant paradigm narrowly conceptualises global health security in terms of the availability of a technical infrastructure to detect emerging infectious diseases and prevent their contagion, but profoundly undertheorises the broader social and political determinants of public health. The neglect of social and political features is amplified in instruments such as the GHS Index that privilege universalised templates presumed to apply across countries but that prove to be inadequate in assessing how individual societies draw on their unique histories to craft public health responses.

中文翻译：

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备灾伤亡：全球卫生安全指数和 COVID-19

2019 年全球卫生安全指数（GHS 指数）将美国和英国评估为为应对灾难性流行病做好最充分准备的两个国家。该指数的准备程度排名与各国 COVID-19 的实际经历几乎没有相关性。在解释这种差异时，该论文认为更好的指标和更多的数据不会解决这个问题。相反，需要审视为 GHS 指数等工具提供信息的全球卫生安全的普遍范式。这种占主导地位的范式狭隘地将全球卫生安全概念化为技术基础设施的可用性，以检测新出现的传染病并防止其传染，但在理论上严重缺乏公共卫生的更广泛的社会和政治决定因素。