Maxwell J Smith

Biographic Data

ID3581242
NAMEMaxwell J Smith
GIVEN NAMESMaxwell J
FAMILY NAMESmith
SIGNATURESMITH M J
AFFILIATIONSWestern University
ORCID0000-0001-5230-0548
VERIFIEDYes
TOTAL WORKS34
TOTAL CITATIONS19
AUTHOR COUNT34
EDITOR COUNT0
FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR2011
LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR2026
H-INDEX3

  • Informed consent when vaccination is mandatory

    M Smith, Maxwell J Smith et al.ARTICLEJournal of Medical Ethics2026

  • Do vaccine mandates impair the voluntariness of informed consent

    Maxwell J Smith, Evan MackieARTICLEJournal of Medical Ethics2026

    An ethical and legal obligation generally exists for informed consent to be obtained prior to the administration of medical interventions. This includes vaccinations. For an individual’s informed consent to be valid, it must be given voluntarily . Hence, when individuals are required to be vaccinated—for example, as a condition of employment—we might ask whether this impairs the voluntariness of their informed consent, thereby rendering it invali…

  • Achieving equity to fully realise the pandemic agreement

    Open AccessDiego S Silva, Kari Pahlman et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2025

    box The values articulated in the Pandemic Agreement (PA)—including equity, solidarity and trust—are important building blocks in attempts to facilitate the global development and distribution of vaccines and other technologies in future outbreaks and pandemics

  • Advancing collaborative research for health

    Open AccessCarla Saénz, Timothy Krahn et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2024

    The calls for health research to be collaborative are ubiquitous—even as part of a recent World Health Assembly resolution on clinical trials—yet the arguments in support of collaborative research have been taken for granted and are absent in the literature. This article provides three arguments to justify why health research ought to be collaborative and discusses trade-offs to be considered among the ethical values guiding each argument

  • Sustainability in the pandemic accord

    Open AccessG Owen Schaefer, Ezekiel Emanuel et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2024

    Careful consideration of ethical principles and their ramifications continues to be central to pandemic prevention, preparedness and response, as reflected in the latest iteration of the pandemic accord

  • The ethics of firing unvaccinated employees

    Open AccessMaxwell J SmithARTICLEJournal of Medical Ethics2024

    Some organisations make vaccination a condition of employment. This means prospective employees must demonstrate they have been vaccinated (eg, against measles) to be hired. But it also means organisations must decide whether existing employees should be expected to meet newly introduced vaccination conditions (eg, against COVID-19). Unlike prospective employees who will not be hired if they do not meet vaccination conditions, existing employees …

  • The intervention ladder and the ethical appraisal of systemic public health interventions

    Maxwell J Smith, Kayla GauthierARTICLEJournal of Medical Ethics2024

  • Digital health literacy, vaccine information sources, and vaccine acceptance among parents in Ontario

    Open AccessSarah Ashfield, Lorie Donelle et al.ARTICLEPLOS Global Public Health2024

    Parents make important vaccination decisions for their children and many variables affect parents’ decisions to accept or decline vaccines. Parents are tasked with locating, understanding, and applying information to inform health decisions often using online resources; however, the digital health literacy levels of parents are unknown. The purpose of this study was to investigate parents’ digital health literacy levels, their sources for vaccine…

  • Bridging ethics and epidemiology

    Open AccessBrendan T Smith, Christine M Warren et al.ARTICLESSM - Population Health2023

    Health inequities are differences in health that are 'unjust'. Yet, despite competing ethical views about what counts as an 'unjust difference in health', theoretical insights from ethics have not been systematically integrated into epidemiological research. Using diabetes as an example, we explore the impact of adopting different ethical standards of health equity on population health outcomes. Specifically, we explore how the implementation of …

  • Institutional trust is a distinct construct related to vaccine hesitancy and refusal

    Open AccessSekoul Krastev, Oren Krajden et al.ARTICLEBMC Public Health2023

    Based on our findings, we suggest that diminished institutional trust plays a crucial role in vaccine hesitancy. We propose that this may contribute to a tendency to instead place trust in interpersonally propagated belief systems, which may be more strongly misaligned with mainstream evidence and thus support vaccine hesitancy attitudes. We offer strategies rooted in these observations for creating public health messages designed to enhance vacc…

  • Evaluating potential unintended consequences of Covid-19 vaccine mandates and passports

    Open AccessMaxwell J SmithARTICLEBMJ Global Health2022

  • R&D during public health emergencies

    Open AccessRachel Alberta Katz, Fabio Salamanca-Buentello et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2022

    In January 2021, Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director–general of the WHO, warned that the world was ‘on the brink of a catastrophic moral failure [that] will be paid with lives and livelihoods in the world’s poorest countries’. We are now past the brink. Many high-income countries have vaccinated their populations (which, in some cases, includes third and even fourth doses) and are loosening public health and social measures, while low-income …

  • Between rules and resistance

    Open AccessCarly Jackson, Roojin Habibi et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2022

    In times of a public health emergency, lawyers and ethicists play a key role in ensuring that government responses, such as travel restrictions, are both legally and ethically justified. However, when travel bans were imposed in a broadly discriminatory manner against southern African countries in response to the Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variant in late 2021, considerations of law, ethics or science did not appear to guide politicians’ decisions. Rathe…

  • Why we should not ‘just use age’ for Covid-19 vaccine prioritisation

    Open AccessMaxwell J SmithARTICLEJournal of Medical Ethics2022

    Older age is one of the greatest risk factors for severe outcomes from COVID-19. If we believe it is important to use limited supplies of COVID-19 vaccines to protect the most vulnerable and prevent deaths, then available doses should be allocated with significant priority to older adults. Yet, we should resist the conclusion that age should be the sole criterion for COVID-19 vaccine prioritisation or that no younger populations (eg, those under …

  • An intersectional human rights approach to prioritising access to Covid-19 vaccines

    Open AccessSharifah Sekalala, Katrina Perehudoff et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2021

    We finally have a vaccine for the COVID-19 crisis. However, due to the limited numbers of the vaccine, states will have to consider how to prioritise groups who receive the vaccine. In this paper, we argue that the practical implementation of human rights law requires broader consideration of intersectional needs in society and the disproportionate impact that COVID-19 is having on population groups with pre-existing social and medical vulnerabil…

  • Mere rhetoric? Using solidarity as a moral guide for deliberations on border closures, border reopenings and travel restrictions in the age of Covid-19

    Open AccessDiego S Silva, Carly Jackson et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2021

    box > Every government is responsible for, and accountable to, its own people. But Member States can only truly keep their own people safe if they are accountable to each other at the global level. > > - Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, 74th World Health Assembly, 31 May 20211 As we enter the second half of 2021, the global health community continues to be vexed by the following question: what justifies states’ continued use of international trave…

  • Ethical and policy considerations for Covid-19 vaccination modalities

    Open AccessJ Wolff, Caesar A Atuire et al.ARTICLEBMJ Global Health2021

    Background To investigate whether neonatal hyperglycaemia in the first postnatal week is associated with treatment-demanding retinopathy of prematurity (ROP). Methods This is a Danish national, retrospective, case–control study of premature infants (birth period 2003–2006). Three national registers were searched, and data were linked through a unique civil registration number. The study sample consisted of 106 cases each matched with two comparis…

  • Informing ‘good’ global health research partnerships

    Open AccessErynn M Monette, David Mchugh et al.ARTICLEGlobal Health Action2021

    Background: Several sets of principles have been proposed to guide global health research partnerships and mitigate inequities inadvertently caused by them. The existence of multiple sets of principles poses a challenge for those seeking to critically engage with and develop their practice. Which of these is best to use, and why? To what extent, if any, is there agreement across proposed principles?Objective: The objectives of this review were to…

  • What do we mean by critical and ethical global engagement? Questions from a research partnership between universities in Canada and Rwanda

    Open AccessEugenia Canas, Robert J Gough et al.ARTICLEGlobal Public Health2021

    Language - the words we use - can play a key role in enabling or limiting transformation of inequalities in the field of global health. At the same time, given the interdisciplinary, intersectoral, and international nature of much global health work, intended meanings, commitments, and underlying values for words used cannot be taken for granted. This commentary sets out to clarify, and in this manner render available for further discussion and d…

  • Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of Covid-19

    Ezekiel J Emanuel, Ezekiel Emanuel et al.ARTICLENew England Journal of Medicine2020

    Covid-19 is officially a pandemic. It is a novel infection with serious clinical manifestations, including death, and it has reached at least 124 countries and territories. Although the ultimate course and impact of Covid-19 are uncertain, it is not merely possible but likely that the disease will produce enough severe illness to overwhelm health care infrastructure. Emerging viral pandemics “can place extraordinary and sustained demands on publi…

  • Setting Health‐Care Priorities

    Open AccessMaxwell J SmithARTICLEBioethics2020

  • Publication Ethics During Public Health Emergencies Such as the Covid-19 Pandemic

    Maxwell J Smith, Ross Upshur et al.ARTICLEAmerican Journal of Public Health2020Cited by: 1References: 3

    Published online ahead of print May 14, 2020: e1-e2. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2020.305686)

  • Social distancing, social justice, and risk during the Covid-19 pandemic

    Open AccessDiego S Silva, Maxwell J SmithARTICLECanadian Journal of Public Health2020Cited by: 3References: 8

  • Public Health as Social Justice? A Qualitative Study of Public Health Policy-Makers' Perspectives

    Open AccessMaxwell J Smith, Alison Thompson et al.ARTICLESocial Justice Research2019Cited by: 2References: 34

  • Is ‘health equity’ bad for our health? A qualitative empirical ethics study of public health policy-makers’ perspectives

    Open AccessMaxwell J Smith, Alison Thompson et al.ARTICLECanadian Journal of Public Health2018Cited by: 2References: 22