The Johns Hopkins University-Pompeu Fabra University Public Policy Center (JHU-UPF PPC) advises the Spanish Parliament and the vice-president’s office for Social Affairs of the Spanish Government in the areas of access to nurseries and home care services, as well as the adaptation of the Sustainable Development Goals. The public social and health authorities of the federal government and of several other US states are other recipients of such consultancy services, which seek to address the major social crisis that has arisen in the country due to the pandemic.

The JHU-UPF PPC, established in 2014 jointly by the two institutions, with the aim of improving people’s social welfare and quality of life through cross-disciplinary and applied research, has analysed the economic crisis and government policies of several countries and has produced academic papers on the impact of the pandemic on issues such as health inequalities or job insecurity. Noteworthy are the efforts it has devoted to the dissemination and popularization of scientific knowledge required to control the pandemic, through actions targeting information systems and the general public.

Its mission has acquired greater relevance than ever with the response and the many actions being carried out to understand and combat the current global crisis brought about by COVID-19. The collaboration at the Center between researchers from the two universities has been an essential contributing factor to the work done, through which they have learned from each other, on both sides of the North Atlantic.

“These days, the activity at the Center has been very intense, with a constant exchange of information and knowledge between the two institutions”.

Vicenç Navarro, UPF emeritus lecturer and director of the JHU-UPF PPC, highlights the efforts of the two institutions: “Everything we have been doing is highly demanding and we could not have succeeded without the support and encouragement of the two universities that sponsor the Center: the Johns Hopkins University and Pompeu Fabra University”, he assures.

The director adds that “consequently, these days, the activity at the Center has been very intense, with a constant exchange of information and knowledge between the two institutions. In fact, we are pleased to have been able to provide direct help at such a difficult time as we are living in a culture of international solidarity and cooperation that is needed now more than ever”.

Vicenç Navarro explains the collaboration between the two institutions belonging to the JHU-UPF PPC concerning COVID-19 (video posted on Vimeo)

Advice to governments and public authorities in Spain and the US

Vicenç Navarro explains that “to respond to the coronavirus, we have expanded our activities and we are fully involved in the analysis and resolution of the pandemic. This has included advice and support to the public authorities on both sides of the North Atlantic, both to central and local governments, in their efforts to reduce the huge damage that the pandemic is causing to health, quality of life and the well-being of the population”.

This support includes advice to the Spanish Parliament, within the framework of the Commission for Social and Economic Reconstruction, set up to steer the recovery in Spain; and the vice-president’s office for Social Affairs of the State government in two different areas: on the one hand, to extend and make universal the right of access by Spanish families to nurseries (0-3 years) and home care services for dependent persons. The consultancy, with regard to both the pandemic and the period following the pandemic, consists of analysing the needs, resources, management and funding of these services.

“The JHU-UPF PPC has critically reviewed the social and environmental indicators, helping in their improvement and their fairer, more effective implementation”.

Moreover, the Center has advised the vice-president’s office on the adaptation in Spain of the United Nations Agenda 2030 Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) to the new social situation brought about by the pandemic. Joan Benach, co-director of the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center and director of the Research Group on Health Inequalities, Environment - Employment Conditions Network (GREDS-EMCONET) of the UPF Department of Political and Social Sciences, has been collaborating with the dozen or so researchers at the Center who have been dedicated to this task.

Professor Benach explains that “the JHU-UPF PPC is made up of a team that includes a cross-disciplinary group of experts who, at the request of the Directorate-General for Lever Policies for Compliance with Agenda 2030, has critically reviewed the social and environmental indicators, helping in their improvement and their fairer, more effective implementation. In addition, the Center aims to be able to maximize participation by the civil society in this process”.

If we focus on US territory, the JHU-UPF PPC advises public social and health authorities of the federal government and of several other US states to address the major social crisis brought about by the pandemic. In the US there is a marked deficit in health and social areas, and this is what the support of the researchers aims to influence.

Professor Keshia Pollack, co-director of the Center and director of the Institute for Social Health and Policy, is conducting an analysis of this problem at the Johns Hopkins University, advising the state of Maryland.

Analysis of the economic and social crisis and of government policies

Other actions carried out by the JHU-UPF PPC that have involved professors Benach and Navarro are the analysis of the specific characteristics of the impact of the pandemic on health inequalities, the economic crisis it has caused and policies in these areas developed by various governments, including the US, the Italian and the Spanish.

Job insecurity, the systemic economic and social crisis, and the need to implement profound, far-reaching social changes are priority fields of study: notable are the works of other members of the Center, including Christos Zografos, professor and Ramon y Cajal researcher with the Department of Political and Social Sciences at UPF and environmental policy expert, and professor Thomas Burke of the Johns Hopkins University, who was the highest authority on the subject of the environment and climate during the Obama administration.

“In the face of global inequality, a vital challenge for the global health is to find ways to generalize care systems on a global scale”.

Professor Benach notes that “the current crisis is exacerbating global incertitude with devastating labour-, social- and health-related consequences. In this regard, the pandemic is an opportunity to underline the critical importance of social investment (from health and social services through housing to employment), which decisively influences the quality of life of society as a whole”.

Meanwhile, professor Zografos says that “in the face of global inequality, a vital challenge for the global health is to find ways to generalize care systems on a global scale, which have been accentuated by the COVID-19 crisis”. In turn, Vicenç Navarro adds that “there is no doubt that countries will change greatly, hence post-pandemic will be different from pre-pandemic. We must move towards an economic and social system that favours the common good, which is in great need today in the vast majority of countries”.

Joan Benach, co-director of the JHU-UPF Public Policy Center, speaks about the research on COVID-19 and inequalities (video posted on the UPF YouTube channel)  

Dissemination and popularization of scientific knowledge and presence in the media

 One important task of the Center has been the dissemination and popularization of scientific knowledge among different bodies and among the general public, as well as the dissemination through digital information media platforms, of the effects of the pandemic in Spain and the United States.

Spreading the knowledge necessary to control the pandemic internationally and helping information systems to understand epidemiological, medical and health sector-related language, as well as implying the need for participation by the public in the measures taken by the public authorities, are the other goals.

The Center has helped information systems to understand epidemiological, medical and health sector-related language and stress the importance of public participation.

An example is the online seminar organized by Carlos Castillo-Salgado, a professor at the Department of Epidemiology of the Bloomberg School of Public Health, which involved nearly 600 journalists from Latin America and Spain. Its purpose was to train them and introduce them to the most commonly used epidemiological concepts and measures in the monitoring and management of outbreaks and epidemics.

Also noteworthy is the work of professor Joshua Sharfstein, of the Department of Health Policy at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, who helped in the dissemination of scientific knowledge on the pandemic in Baltimore, Maryland and across the US, with the well-known "Johns Hopkins Public Health on Call": a daily podcast on the coronavirus, which contains the most up-to-date information on COVID-19 by experts of the JHU and of the United States.

Finally, in Spain, professors Vicenç Navarro, Joan Benach and Christos Zografos, together with a further twelve teachers, have published extensively in top journals articles dealing with the pandemic and relevant control measures for the State, as well as about the social and economic impact of COVID-19 on the recovery measures being taken.

Implications with regard to teaching

The JHU-UPF Public Policy Center teaches the university master’s degree in Public and Social Policies (BSM-UPF), sponsored by UPF in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University. The master’s degree has included quite a large number of subjects on the pandemic, its causes and consequences and how to solve it, taught by lecturers from the two universities.