A holistic approach to pandemic preparedness: exploring the importance of integrated advice

“Further developing interdiscplinary advice with an integrated framework and interdiscplinary research readiness is an important part of pandemic preparedness.” On February 25, 2025, Charlotte Barker, Editor, Vaccine Insights, spoke to the Pandemic and Disaster Preparedness Center’s (PDPC) Anja Schreijer, Medical Director, and Tomris Cesuroglu, Scientific Secretary, about the importance of integrating biomedical, social, and economic advice for effective infectious disease outbreak response. This article has been written based on that interview. In 2024, the PDPC in Rotterdam, the Netherlands, carried out an avian influenza outbreak simulation to explore integrated advisory approaches in pandemic response. The results revealed that siloed biomedical and socioeconomic advice is often conflicting, which highlights the need for interdisciplinary collaboration. Simulation exercises emphasize critical knowledge gaps and the necessity of integrating biomedical, social, and economic strategies to improve future pandemic response.