COSSI webinar video now available: Mandatory COVID-19 vaccination

This COSSI webinar on vaccine mandates was held on Monday, 26 July 2021.

Vaccination against COVID-19 is the main tool for bringing the world out of the COVID-19 pandemic. Mandatory vaccination has been debated as a strategy to get high vaccination coverage and protect individuals in certain settings.

This webinar considered the policy, behavioural, ethical and epidemiological aspects of mandating COVID-19 vaccination.

View the video of this webinar to:

• find out what vaccination mandates are, who they may be used for and how they could be delivered
• hear about the governance and political aspects of vaccination mandates
• hear about epidemiological, behavioural and social considerations of mandates, including effectiveness
• hear about ethical considerations of vaccine mandates for adults. 

Speakers:

Webinar chair - Associate Professor Margie Danchin
Paediatrician, Department of General Medicine, The Royal Children's Hospital

As leader of the Vaccine Uptake Group, Murdoch Children's Research Institute (MCRI), Margie's research focuses mainly on vaccine confidence, acceptance and uptake, particularly among high-risk groups and in low- and middle-income countries.

In Australia, she is the chair of the Collaboration on Social Science in Immunisation (COSSI) Group, chair of the Social Science Advisory Board and a member of the Scientific Advisory Committee, National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance (NCIRS) and is on the COVID-19 ATAGI working group. She works closely with the World Health Organization and Global Vaccine Demand Hub and is part of the Melbourne Children’s Global health Leadership team.

Dr Katie Atwell
Senior Lecturer, School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia

Dr Katie Attwell is an early-mid career researcher and Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Fellow.

Dr Attwell is one of the world’s leading experts on mandatory childhood vaccination, which is the topic of her ARC-funded fellowship. She leads the interdisciplinary project “Coronavax: Preparing Community and Government”, which engages in community and government research in readiness for a vaccine roll-out for COVID-19 and has recently conducted research on community attitudes regarding COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Dr Attwell is a founding governance committee member of the Collaboration on Social Science and Immunisation (COSSI), a Fellow of the Public Policy Institute (UWA) and an Honorary Fellow of the Wesfarmers Centre of Vaccines and Infectious Diseases, Telethon Kids Institute.

Associate Professor James Wood
Program lead, Mathematical modelling, UNSW School of Public Health and Community Medicine

Associate Professor James Wood is an applied mathematician with interests across a broad range, from evolutionary and immunological processes to cost-effectiveness evaluations for disease interventions.

He completed his honours degree and PhD at the University of Queensland (both in mathematical physics). His primary application area is vaccine preventable diseases, but he also has interests in tuberculosis and resistance in bacterial infections more broadly. He has published over 50 papers in international journals, focussing on the impact and cost-effectiveness of vaccines on epidemiology, along with research related disease elimination and parameter estimation (particularly for measles). He was previously quite involved in research in emerging infections (particularly planning for influenza pandemics). 

Professor Julie Leask
Professor, Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery, Visiting Fellow, NCIRS

Julie Leask is a social scientist specialising in immunisation and a professor in the Susan Wakil School of Nursing and Midwifery, Faculty of Medicine and Health, University of Sydney.

With a background in nursing and midwifery, she has a Master of Public Health (1998) and PhD (2002) from the University of Sydney. She is a visiting professorial fellow at NCIRS. 

Julie’s current research focuses on the social and behavioural aspects of vaccination uptake, programs and policy. She is chair of the WHO working group on Measuring Behavioural and Social Drivers of Vaccination and conducts research with the US CDC and UNICEF. She is a member of the Australian Regional Immunisation Alliance and the Expert Advisory Group for Australia’s Regional (COVID-19) Vaccine Access and Health Security Initiative. 

Dr Jane Williams
Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Sydney Health Ethics, Faculty of Medicine and Health

Jane Williams is an APPRISE post-doctoral research fellow at Sydney Health Ethics at the University of Sydney. Her broad research focus is public health ethics.

Recent work includes projects on planning for infectious disease emergencies, pandemic vaccination, and quarantine. Previously she worked on cancer screening, reproductive ethics and conflicts of interest in healthcare.