Public health

Policy Briefing

17 May 22

Ethics tools for decision-makers: Responding to public health threats

Drawing on our in-depth work on public health ethics, we have published ethics tools to help decision-makers develop a proportionate response to public health threats.

News

Ethics tools for decision-makers: Responding to public health threats

17 May 2022

News

Nuffield Council on Bioethics welcomes delay in making COVID-19 vaccination compulsory for health care workers in England

We welcome the announcement that COVID-19 vaccination will not become a condition of deployment for all healthcare workers in England until the spring.

09 Nov 2021

Press Release

Mandatory vaccinations for health and social care workers: Nuffield Council on Bioethics urges Government to gather more evidence and explore other options more thoroughly before introducing coercive measures

14 Oct 2021

Blog

Personal responsibility versus legal obligation? Why simplistic binaries make for bad pandemic responses

by John Coggon

In relation to pandemic policy in England, the absence of sustained ethical discourse at the level of government has created fundamental challenges to establishing how responsibility should be understood—practically, and as a matter of principle.

12 Jul 2021

3

Press Release

Trust is a key factor in vaccine uptake, says new briefing by ethics body

Trust in those developing, offering, and promoting vaccines plays a key role in decisions about the uptake of vaccines, says a new briefing note from the Nuffield Council on Bioethics.

20 Apr 2021

Policy Briefing

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20 Apr 21

Vaccine access and uptake

This briefing note explores factors influencing the access and uptake of vaccines; the different approaches taken by public health authorities to promote vaccines; and the ethical considerations that arise in this context.

News

Nuffield Council on Bioethics welcomes Government’s obesity strategy

27 Jul 2020

Blog

Beyond liberty: social values and public health ethics in responses to COVID-19

by John Coggon

Legal and policy responses to COVID-19 rest on and express the balance of different basic values and principles. Earlier and current regulatory approaches bring into sharp relief how liberty must be understood and weighed against other values. This is for the sake of liberty itself, but crucially too for other compelling aspects of social justice.

26 Mar 2020

1

News

New briefing: Responding to the COVID-19 pandemic - ethical considerations

The Nuffield Council on Bioethics has published a new policy briefing. It setting out the key ethical considerations relevant to public health measures being introduced to manage the COVID-19 pandemic in the UK.

17 Mar 2020

Policy Briefing

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17 Mar 20

Ethical considerations in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic

This rapid policy briefing outlines ethical principles that must be considered when developing public health measures in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Blog

COVID-19: public health, public trust and public support

by Hugh Whittall

A brief analysis of what the Government is doing now to contain COVID-19, the possible restrictive measures that they might take to prevent and control the spread, why these might be justified, and why it is important that the Government sets out publicly – and early - the case for implementing such restrictive approaches.

27 Feb 2020

2

Blog

COVID-19 and the ethical imperative of preparedness

by Katharine Wright

So what relevance has our report to the enormous challenges being posed to health systems and governments the world over by COVID-19? Unsurprisingly, quite a lot.

24 Feb 2020

1

News

Guide to the ethics of surveillance and quarantine for novel coronavirus

We have put together a short guide to some of the main ethical questions around surveillance and quarantine for infectious diseases, based on the findings of our 2007 inquiry 'public health: ethical issues'.

10 Feb 2020