Emerging Infectious Disease Outbreak Response: Exploring the Sensemaking Process of an Expert Advisory Group

ABSTRACT The COVID‐19 pandemic has highlighted the importance of crisis research, particularly in the response phase. This research explores long duration crisis sensemaking of an Expert Advisory Group (EAG) during an emerging disease outbreak which has implications for the conduct of COVID‐19 public inquiries. The members of the Ontario SARS Scientific Advisory Committee (OSSAC) for the 2003 SARS outbreak in Canada, provide the context for this study. Among their duties, these experts were tasked to write directives (mandated protocols) that govern all aspects of hospital life, such as the protocol for transferring SARS patients. Data were collected in multiple forms, including: public inquiry reports, meeting minutes, newspaper articles, and interviews. Following a constructivist grounded theory strategy, several iterations of data collection and analysis were completed. The findings include a conceptual framework that depicts the sensemaking process and illuminates the relationship between retrospective (after an event has occurred) and prospective (future‐oriented) sensemaking.