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Frontline Nurses

Leaders in Pandemic Response

Frontline Nurses: Leaders in Pandemic Response seeks to honor the role of frontline nurses in pandemic disease outbreaks, to recognize nurses and midwives for their critical contribution to public health during emergencies, and to advocate for nurses’ expertise in health care policymaking and improved health outcomes. In order to do so we have collected the oral histories of nurses in West Africa during the Ebola crisis.

The 2014-16 Ebola outbreak in western African countries was a devastating epidemic in which healthcare workers confronted soaring contagion and mortality.  In summer 2019, a team of nursing and midwifery leaders conducted oral history interviews with a group of frontline Ebola nurses and midwives in Liberia and Sierra Leone. Their stories and insights show the crucial role of nursing leadership in epidemic response and offer essential lessons for health care and policymaking today.

Listen to the voices of the nurses and read excerpts from their oral histories.

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