This book examines how the general public experienced the 2009 H1N1 influenza virus outbreak by bringing together stories about individuals' perception of their illness, as well as reflections on news, vaccination, social isolation, and other infection control measures. Providing unprecedented insight into the lives of ordinary people faced with the specter of a potentially lethal virus and drawing on currents in sociocultural scholarship of narrative, illness narrative, and narrative medicine, the book develops a novel 'public health narrative' approach of interest to health communicators and researchers across the social and health sciences.

Mark Davis is Associate Professor in the School of Social Sciences at Monash University. He has published and co-edited books on the socio-cultural aspects of epidemics, including Sex, Technology and Public Health (Palgrave), HIV Treatment and Prevention Technologies in International Perspective (Palgrave), and Disclosure in Health and Illness (Routledge).

Davina Lohm is a researcher, working on Australian Research Council Discovery Projects on pandemic influenza and antimicrobial resistance. Her focus is on how people understand and manage their personal health circumstances, taking into consideration global, national, and local health events and policy frameworks, as well as their personal life circumstances and biographies. She has published widely in leading health journals including, Body & Society, Health, Risk & Society, Sociological Inquiry, Journal of Health Psychology, and Health.

• Acknowledgements


• Chapter 1. Introduction


• Chapter 2. Pandemic tales


• Chapter 3. 'Be Alert, Not Alarmed'


• Chapter 4. Contagion


• Chapter 5. Immunity


• Chapter 6. Vulnerabilities


• Chapter 7. News Media Hype?


• Chapter 8. 'The boy who cried wolf' and other post-trust stories


• Chapter 9. Conclusion


• Appendix: Participants Who Appear in the Text


• References