Ladders and stairs: how the intervention ladder focuses blame on individuals and obscures systemic failings and interventions.

Introduced in 2007 by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics, the intervention ladder has become an influential tool in bioethics and public health policy for weighing the justification for interventions and for weighing considerations of intrusiveness and proportionality. However, while such considerations are critical, in its focus on these factors, the ladder overemphasises the role of personal responsibility and the importance of individual behaviour change in public health interventions. Through a study of vaccine hesitancy and vaccine mandates among healthcare workers, this paper investigates how the ladder obscures systemic factors such as the social determinants of health.

Are COVID-19 vaccination mandates for healthcare workers effective? A systematic review of the impact of mandates on increasing vaccination, alleviating staff shortages and decreasing staff illness.

Introduction: The rapid development of COVID-19 vaccines is a cornerstone in the global effort to combat the pandemic. Healthcare workers (HCWs), being at the forefront of the pandemic response, have been the focus of vaccine mandate policies. This review aims to evaluate the impacts of COVID-19 vaccine mandates among HCWs, a critical step in understanding the broader implications of such policies in healthcare settings.

Vaccine mandates for prospective versus existing employees: reply to Smith.

Employment-based vaccine mandates have worse consequences for existing than prospective employees. Prospective employees are not yet dependent on a particular employment arrangement, so they are better positioned to respond to such mandates. Yet despite this asymmetry in consequences, Smith argues that if vaccine mandates are justified for prospective employees, they are similarly justified for existing employees.