Why Young People Must Be at the Center of Pandemic Preparedness

This article was exclusively written for The European Sting by Syed Talha Hussain Tirmzi MS-5 Amna Inayat Medical College Pakistan and Dr Ahmed Bilal, MD, Vice President, PIMSA-GHWD– Pakistan International Medical Students  Association. The opinions expressed within reflect only the writers’ views and not necessarily The European Sting’s position on the issue.

By Syed Talha Hussain Tirmzi MS-5 Amna Inayat Medical College Pakistan Contact talhasyed1029@gmail.com | Dr Ahmed Bilal, MD, Vice President, PIMSA-GHWD. Contact: ahmeddrsyed@gmail.com

When the world first confronted COVID-19, young people were everywhere in the response: volunteering in overwhelmed hospitals, using social media to counter misinformation, organizing community support groups at street level and online. Yet when it came to pandemic preparedness plans  written in the corridors of power youth were largely invisible. Over 1.8 billion people aged 10–24 now populate the globe, amounting to roughly 23 % of the world’s population and 60 % of the Commonwealth population alone, a demographic force unlike any before in history.

Despite this demographic reality, most national and global pandemic strategies treat young people as passive responders or victims of disease rather than active partners in preparedness, surveillance and response. That must change. Future outbreaks won’t wait for static systems built without the energy, innovation and reach of young citizens.

Demographics: The World Is Young

Globally, approximately 1.2 billion people aged 15–24 currently exist, equating to about 16 % of the planet’s inhabitants, and that number is expected to remain high through 2050. In much of Asia, Africa and the Middle East the proportion of youth as a share of population is even higher yet the representation of young leaders in pandemic planning forums remains minimal.

These are not fringe numbers. Nearly one in four people globally is under 30, offering a vast reservoir of potential in community outreach, digital innovation and risk communication if  and only if policymakers build inclusive platforms that meaningfully engage this cohort.

From COVID-19 to Preparedness: What Youth Already Did

During COVID-19, youth were more than bystanders:

• They mobilized neighbourhood food and medicine support networks when formal supply chains collapsed.
• They created low-cost digital dashboards and reporting tools tracking outbreaks in real time.
• Young people leveraged social media to dispel myths about vaccines and safety measures at times more effectively than official channels.

Universities became surge labour pools, with medical and nursing students filling gaps in overstretched health systems. Yet even as youth took initiative on the ground, most pandemic frameworks treated them as data points rather than planners.

This omission is not just symbolic. Pandemic response succeeds in communities, not boardrooms. Youth can fill surveillance and response gaps precisely where trust in institutions is low but peer networks are strong.

Early Warning Systems Need Young Eyes and Ears

Pandemic preparedness is fundamentally about early detection a challenge that will only grow as climate change expands disease frontiers and drives new outbreaks. Schools, universities and online communities are often the first to detect unusual symptoms or behavioural changes long before any central authority does.

Digital technologies are part of the solution: symptom reporting apps, wastewater monitoring and citizen science dashboards can all contribute to real-time disease detection. Young people, as digital natives who communicate across platforms and languages, are natural leaders in these domains.

European policymakers, for example, have pushed digital health ecosystems as part of EU preparedness frameworks. If these systems are to function in real time they need youth participation  not just in usage, but in design, deployment and governance.

Trust and Communication: Where Youth Have an Edge

Risk communication is no longer a one-way street. Traditional “top-down” messages even when scientifically accurate  often fail to penetrate social feeds where disinformation thrives. Research on the pandemic “infodemic” shows how misinformation spread globally, interfering with vaccine acceptance and preventive behaviours.

Young communicators, fluent in the languages and platforms that shape public perceptions, are trusted messengers in ways that governments rarely are. Engaging them as peer educators and community risk communicators amplifies public health messaging and closes dangerous gaps between science and society.

Structural Barriers Remain

Despite their demonstrated value, young people are still excluded from formal decision-making structures. In most countries, youth advisory councils are either tokenistic or entirely absent from pandemic preparedness committees.

Funding for youth-led initiatives in health preparedness is similarly underdeveloped. Many proposals sit on paper without sustainable resourcing. Participation often defaults to volunteerism, which fails to tap youth as skilled professionals and innovators.

European data show how deeply the pandemic affected young people’s trust in institutions and economic security: unemployment and educational disruption were widespread among those aged 18–29, undermining confidence in policy responses. Unless these structural barriers are dismantled, future preparedness plans will repeat old mistakes.

What Real Youth-Centered Preparedness Looks Like

If youth are to be central  not accidental  partners in pandemic readiness, policymakers must embrace a set of clear, actionable reforms:

1. Institutional Seats at the Table
National health emergency and pandemic councils should reserve seats for youth representatives with real voting rights, not just advisory status.

2. Funded and Formal Youth Preparedness Corps
Governments and multilateral institutions should invest in paid youth cadet programmes that integrate training in surveillance, communication, logistics and data analytics within broader emergency frameworks.

3. Digital and Community Surveillance Integration
Youth networks from campus health clubs to online volunteer groups  should be linked to national disease surveillance architectures, providing real-time, geo-tagged reporting streams.

4. Youth-Led Risk Communication Hubs
Public health agencies should partner with youth organisations to co-design messaging campaigns across platforms, languages and cultural contexts.

5. Cross-Sector Partnerships
Preparedness cannot be siloed within health ministries. Education, labour, technology and youth affairs ministries must co-develop training pipelines and incentive structures.

The European Imperative

In Europe, where pandemic mandates increasingly intersect with digital transformation agendas and civil liberties debate, integrating youth is not just a moral choice  it’s strategic. With a significant share of its population under 30, the EU’s ability to harness youth voices will determine public trust and compliance in future outbreaks.

The European Parliament has acknowledged rising mental health issues and educational disruption among younger cohorts post-COVID. Yet recognition must translate into policy reform that sees young people as partners in resilience rather than passive recipients of crisis management.

A Call to Action

Pandemics are not fought solely in laboratories, nor are they won in press briefings. They are battled in homes, schools and social feeds places where young people are central actors every day.

If global institutions and governments want to be prepared for the next outbreak, they must stop planning around the generation that will live through it and start planning with it.

Youth are not just the largest generation in human history they are the most connected, adaptive and innovative. To ignore them in preparedness planning is not only unjust; it is a strategic failure the world can ill afford.