Pandemic and interdisciplinarity: challenges for collective health

Abstract

This article discusses the role of interdisciplinarity in analyzing and dealing with the global health and  social crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. It  defends the need to rethink the divisions between the natural world and society, with emphasis on the  environmental issue, and the new conformation of the field of information and communication and its  impacts on contemporary society. The COVID 19  pandemic is understood as an entirely new  phenomenon that highlights, sometimes accelerating,  a series of trends, but which may imply inflections and  changes whose direction is not given. The  centrality of the field of collective health in the  interdisciplinary effort to define scientific agendas  and  also public policy proposals is highlighted. It is  concluded that the strengthening of interdisciplinary  research, especially attentive to the interrelationships  of natural and social systems, is and will be essential  for overcoming the current crisis and probable future  health emergencies.