Publications
Professor Smith writes primarily on ethics and infectious diseases, on health equity and social justice, and on other topics in public health ethics, global health ethics, and bioethics. Please expand the sections below to see publications in these respective areas. Click on publications to access them and view other information, including co-authors.
infectious disease ethics
Ethics of Pandemic Research. In Principles and Practice of Emergency Research Response. Springer, 2024.
The Intervention Ladder and the Ethical Appraisal of Systemic Public Health Interventions. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2024
Sustainability in the Pandemic Accord. BMJ Global Health, 2024
Digital Health Literacy, Vaccine Information Sources, and Vaccine Acceptance Among Parents in Ontario: Quantitative Findings from a Mixed Methods Study. PLOS Global Public Health, 2024
Short- and Long-Term Predicted and Witnessed Consequences of Digital Surveillance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Scoping Review. JMIR Public Health and Surveillance, 2024
Research Ethics in Epidemics and Pandemics: A Casebook. Springer, 2024
Adapting and Adaptive Research. In Research Ethics in Epidemics and Pandemics: A Casebook. Springer, 2024
Trial Unblinding Following Emergency Authorization of Vaccines. In Research Ethics in Epidemics and Pandemics: A Casebook. Springer, 2024
Research Ethics Review During the COVID-19 Pandemic: An International Survey. PLOS One, 2024
Cause for Coercion: Cause for Concern? Monash Bioethics Review, 2024
Where Did Public Health Go Wrong? Seven Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic. European Journal of Public Health, 2024
Ethical Challenges of Advances in Vaccine Delivery Technologies. The Hastings Center Report, 2024
Navigating the Uncertainty: A Novel Taxonomy of Vaccine Hesitancy in the Context of COVID-19. PLOS One, 2023
Institutional Trust is a Distinct Construct Related to Vaccine Hesitancy and Refusal. BMC Public Health, 2023
Understanding COVID-19 Vaccine Hesitancy in Canada. Vaccine, 2023
The Importance of Getting the Ethics Right in a Pandemic Treaty. The Lancet Infectious Diseases, 2023
Data Sharing During Pandemics: Reciprocity, Solidarity, and Limits to Obligations. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2023
Learning from Five Bad Arguments Against Mandatory Vaccination. Vaccine, 2023
The Ethics of Firing Unvaccinated Employees. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2023
Vaccine Mandates Can Result in People Losing Their Jobs. Does That Make Them Unethical? Journal of Medical Ethics Blog, 2023
An Investigation of Media Reports of Digital Surveillance Within the First Year of the COVID-19 Pandemic. Frontiers in Digital Health, 2023
Foreword. In Moral Challenges in a Pandemic Age, Routledge, 2023
Use of Digital Technologies for Public Health Surveillance During the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review. Digital Health, 2023
What Covid Has Taught the World about Ethics. New England Journal of Medicine, 2022
Between Rules and Resistance: Moving Public Health Emergency Responses Beyond Fear, Racism and Greed. BMJ Global Health, 2022
Is the Cure Worse Than the Disease? The Ethics of Imposing Risk in Public Health. Asian Bioethics Review, 2022
Evaluating Potential Unintended Consequences of COVID-19 Vaccine Mandates and Passports. BMJ Global Health, 2022
A Framework for Critical Care Triage During a Major Surge in Critical Illness. Canadian Journal of Anesthesia, 2022
R&D During Public Health Emergencies: The Value(s) of Trust, Governance and Collaboration. BMJ Global Health, 2022
COVID-19 Vaccination Certificates and Lifting Public Health and Social Measures: Ethical Considerations. World Health Organization Regional Office for the Eastern Mediterranean, Eastern Mediterranean Health Journal, 2022
What Constitutes Success in the Rollout of COVID-19 Vaccines? The Lancet, 2021
Governing the Access to COVID-19 Tools Accelerator: Towards Greater Participation, Transparency, and Accountability. The Lancet, 2021
Placebo Use and Unblinding in COVID-19 Vaccine Trials: Recommendations of a WHO Expert Working Group. Nature Medicine, 2021
Mere Rhetoric? Using Solidarity as a Moral Guide for Deliberations on Border Closures, Border Re-openings, and Travel Restrictions in the Age of COVID-19. BMJ Global Health, 2021
Why We Should Not ‘Just Use Age’ for COVID-19 Vaccine Prioritisation. Journal of Medical Ethics, 2021
Balancing Speed and Equity in the Rollout of COVID-19 Vaccines. Journal of Medical Ethics Blog, 2021
Should COVID-19 Vaccines Authorized for Emergency Use be Considered ‘Essential’ Medicines? Health and Human Rights, 2021
Ethical and Policy Considerations for COVID-19 Vaccination Modalities: Delayed Second Dose, Fractional Dose, Mixed Vaccines. BMJ Global Health, 2021
An Intersectional Human Rights Approach to Prioritising Access to COVID-19 Vaccines. BMJ Global Health, 2021
Top Five Ethical Lessons of COVID-19 that the World Must Learn. Wellcome Open Research, 2021
Immunity Certification for COVID-19: Ethical Considerations. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2021
Digital Technology and Disease Surveillance in the COVID-19 Pandemic: A Scoping Review Protocol. BMJ Open, 2021
Emergency Use Authorisation for COVID-19 Vaccines: Lessons from Ebola. The Lancet, 2020
Ethical Conditions for Accelerating COVID-19 Vaccine Research. Wellcome Open Research, 2020
Learning Lessons from COVID-19 Requires Recognizing Moral Failures. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2020
Allocating Scarce Unproven Interventions During Public Health Emergencies: Insights from the WHO MEURI Framework. American Journal of Bioethics, 2020
Social Distancing, Social Justice, and Risk During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2020
Key Ethical Concepts and their Application to COVID-19 Research. Public Health Ethics, 2020
Publication Ethics During Public Health Emergencies Such as the Covid-19 Pandemic. American Journal of Public Health, 2020
Fair Allocation of Scarce Medical Resources in the Time of Covid-19. New England Journal of Medicine, 2020
Pandemic Disease, Public Health, and Ethics. In Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics, Oxford University Press, 2019
Public Health Ethics. In Public Health Law and Policy in Canada, LexisNexis, 2019
Public Health as Social Justice? A Qualitative Study of Public Health Policy-Makers’ Perspectives. Social Justice Research, 2019
Critical Care Triage in Pandemics. In Public Health Ethics: Cases Spanning the Globe, Springer, 2016
Unanticipated Vulnerability: Marginalizing the Least Visible in Pandemic Planning. In Public Health Ethics: Cases Spanning the Globe, Springer, 2016
An Ethical Justification for Expanding the Notion of Effectiveness in Vaccine Post-Market Monitoring: Insights from the HPV Vaccine in Canada. Public Health Ethics, 2016
Most Powerful Lesson from Ebola: We Do Not Learn Our Lessons. Oxford University Press OUPblog, 2015
Ebola and Learning Lessons from Moral Failures: Who Cares About Ethics? Public Health Ethics, 2015
Ethics for Pandemics Beyond Influenza: Ebola, Drug-Resistant Tuberculosis, and Anticipating Future Ethical Challenges in Pandemic Preparedness and Response. Monash Bioethics Review, 2015
Limiting Rights and Freedoms in the Context of Ebola and other Public Health Emergencies: How the Principle of Reciprocity Can Enrich the Application of the Siracusa Principles. Health and Human Rights, 2015
“With Human Health it’s a Global Thing”: Canadian Perspectives on Ethics in the Global Governance of an Influenza Pandemic. Journal of Bioethical Inquiry, 2015
Ethical Considerations in Post-Market-Approval Monitoring and Regulation of Vaccines. Vaccine, 2014
Justifying the Initiation and Continued Provision of Public Health Interventions in Humanitarian Settings. Public Health Ethics, 2014
Disadvantaging the Disadvantaged: When Public Health Policies and Practices Negatively Affect Marginalized Populations. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2013
Canadian National Surveys on Pandemic Influenza Preparations: Pre-Pandemic and Peri-Pandemic Findings. BMC Public Health, 2013
Ethics. In Disaster Preparedness for Healthcare Facilities. McGraw-Hill, 2013
The Duty to Care in an Influenza Pandemic: A Qualitative Study of Canadian Public Perspectives. Social Science & Medicine, 2012
Restrictive Measures in an Influenza Pandemic: A Qualitative Study of Public Perspectives. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2012
Priority Setting of ICU Resources in an Influenza Pandemic: A Qualitative Study of the Canadian Public's Perspectives. BMC Public Health, 2012
Is There a Duty to Share? Ethics of Sharing Research Data in the Context of Public Health Emergencies. Public Health Ethics, 2011
Vulnerability: A Contentious and Fluid Term. The Hastings Center Report, 2010
Canadian Survey on Pandemic Flu Preparations. BMC Public Health, 2010
Public Engagement on Social Distancing in a Pandemic: A Canadian Perspective. American Journal of Bioethics, 2009
World Health Organization
The Ethics of Vaccine Mandates: Advancing the Debate to Prepare for the Future. Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) Immunization Newsletter, 2024
Responding to the Global Mpox Outbreak: Ethics Issues and Considerations. World Health Organization Ethics and Monkeypox Working Group, 2023
COVID-19 and Mandatory Vaccination: Ethical Considerations. World Health Organization COVID-19 Ethics and Governance Working Group, 2022
Bridging the Gap Between Ethics and Decision-Making in Pandemics: Report of the WHO Pandemic Ethics and Policy Summit. World Health Organization, 2022
Emergency Use of Unproven Clinical Interventions Outside Clinical Trials: Ethical Considerations. World Health Organization Working Group on MEURI, 2022
COVID-19 Vaccine Trial Designs in the Context of Authorized COVID-19 Vaccines and Expanding Global Access: Ethical Considerations. World Health Organization ACT Accelerator Ethics and Governance Working Group, 2021
Ethical Framework for WHO’s work in the ACT-Accelerator. World Health Organization ACT Accelerator Ethics and Governance Working Group, 2021
COVID-19 and Mandatory Vaccination: Ethical Considerations and Caveats (April 2021). World Health Organization Ethics and COVID-19 Working Group, 2021
Emergency Use Designation of COVID-19 Candidate Vaccines: Ethical Considerations for Current and Future COVID-19 Placebo-Controlled Vaccine Trials and Trial Unblinding. World Health Organization ACT Accelerator Ethics and Governance Working Group, 2020
Guidance for Research Ethics Committees for Rapid Review of Research During Public Health Emergencies. World Health Organization Ethics and COVID-19 Working Group, 2020
Ethical Considerations to Guide the Use of Digital Proximity Tracking Technologies for COVID-19 Contact Tracing. World Health Organization Ethics and COVID-19 Working Group, 2020
Ethics & SARS-CoV-2 – Restrictive Measures and Physical Distancing. World Health Organization Ethics and COVID-19 Working Group, 2020
Ethics & COVID-19: Resource Allocation and Priority Setting. World Health Organization Ethics and COVID-19 Working Group, 2020
Ethical Standards for Research During Public Health Emergencies: Distilling Existing Guidance to Support COVID-19 R&D. World Health Organization Ethics and COVID-19 Working Group, 2020
“Publication Bias” and How it Might Affect the Response to Public Health Emergencies. In Ethics in Epidemics, Emergencies and Disasters: Research, Surveillance and Patient Care, World Health Organization, 2015
Ethical Obligations of Researchers, Public Health Practitioners and Publishers Regarding Ownership of Scientific Data. In Ethics in Epidemics, Emergencies and Disasters: Research, Surveillance and Patient Care, World Health Organization, 2015
Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table
Vaccinating Ontarians Aged 12-17: Legal and Ethical Requirements for Consent. Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table, 2021
Ethics of Paid Sick Leave for the COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond. Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table Public Health Measures Workstream, 2021
Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table Statement of Concern about Public Health Measures. Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table, 2021
Critical Care Triage for Major Surge in the COVID-19 Pandemic – The Role of the Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table. Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table, 2021
Ethics Table Policy Brief 3: Priority Setting of Personal Protective Equipment – Within Health Care Institutions and Community Support Services. Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table, 2020
Ethics Table Policy Brief 2: Priority Setting of Personal Protective Equipment – Provincial/Regional Distribution. Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table, 2020
Ethics Table Policy Brief 1: Ethics Framework for Ramping Down Elective Surgeries and Other Non-Emergent Activities During the COVID-19 Pandemic. Ontario COVID-19 Bioethics Table, 2020
Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table / Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Committee (OPHESAC)
Environmental Scan: Respiratory Virus Surveillance Systems. Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Committee, 2023
Rapid Review: Approaches to Respiratory Virus Surveillance. Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Committee, 2023
Scientific Report: Strengthening Ontario’s Respiratory Viral Surveillance System. Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Committee, 2023
COVID-19 Vaccine Certificates: Key Considerations for the Ontario Context. Ontario COVID-19 Science Advisory Table, 2021
In Public Media
Resisting "Equity Lite" in Health Care, Public Health, and Bioethics. Impact Ethics, 2024
Public Health’s Post-Pandemic Relationship with Coercion. University of Oxford Ethox Centre Blog, 2023; Republished in Impact Ethics, 2023
How Should We Think About Unintended Consequences of Vaccine Mandates? Impact Ethics, 2022
Vaccine Risk vs. Vaccine Mandates. Healthy Debate, 2022; Republished in Impact Ethics, 2022
Why the “Freedom” Convoy is not a Reason to Re-Think Vaccine Mandates. Impact Ethics, 2022
Delaying Second Vaccine Doses Helped Avert ICU Catastrophe. Healthy Debate, 2021
Should COVID-19 Vaccination be a Condition for Returning to University and College Campuses? University Affairs, 2021
Failure to Combat COVID-19 Can Have Economic Consequences, Too. Impact Ethics, 2020
Why a Flatter Curve Does Not Mean We’ve Won the COVID-19 Battle. CBC, 2020
Postponing the Olympics is the Right Call — Curbing the Coronavirus Pandemic Matters more than Money. The Conversation, 2020
What the Coronavirus Emergency Declaration Means for Canada. The Conversation, 2020
Health equity & social justice
Advancing Planetary Health Through Interspecies Justice: A Rapid Review. Challenges, 2024
Bridging Ethics and Epidemiology: Modelling Ethical Standards of Health Equity. Social Science and Medicine – Population Health, 2023
Social Justice and Public Health. In The Routledge Handbook of Philosophy of Public Health, Routledge, 2022
Social Justice and Health Equity: Core Ethical Values in the Health Sciences. In Encyclopedia of Life Sciences, Wiley-Blackwell, 2021
Let’s Talk: Ethical Foundations of Health Equity. National Collaborating Centre for Determinants of Health, 2020
Book Review: Setting Health-Care Priorities: What Ethical Theories Tell Us, by Torbjörn Tännsjö. Bioethics, 2020
Public Health as Social Justice? A Qualitative Study of Public Health Policy-Makers’ Perspectives. Social Justice Research, 2019
Reducing Health Inequities Through Intersectoral Action: Balancing Equity in Health with Equity for Other Social Goods. International Journal of Health Policy and Management, 2019
Is ‘Health Equity’ Bad for Our Health? A Qualitative Empirical Ethics Study of Public Health Policy-Makers’ Perspectives. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2018
Health Equity in Public Health: Clarifying our Commitment. Public Health Ethics, 2015
“Impaired in Life”: Analyzing People's Accounts of Depression in Ethiopia: Implications for A Cultural-Eco Social Approach to Global Mental Health. International Journal of Social Psychiatry, 2024
Advancing Collaborative Research for Health: Why Does Collaboration Matter? BMJ Global Health, 2024
How “Ought” the Best Interests of Children be Considered in Medical Decision-Making? Canadian Journal of Bioethics, 2024
Methodological Considerations in Conducting a Bilingual Study. American Journal of Qualitative Research, 2024
“She Was Finally Mine”: The Moral Experience of Families in the Context of Trisomy 13 and 18 – A Scoping Review with Thematic Analysis. BMC Medical Ethics, 2024
Challenges and Opportunities in Recruiting Research Participants using Facebook: Lessons Learned from an Exemplar Study. Canadian Journal of Nursing Research, 2023
Seasonal Bulletin: Interim Recommendations for Ontario’s Heat Alert and Response System. Ontario Public Health Emergencies Science Advisory Committee, 2023
Artificial Intelligence and the Work-Health Interface: A Research Agenda for a Technologically Transforming World of Work. American Journal of Industrial Medicine, 2023
“No One Went into Pharmacy Because They Wanted to Sell a Lot of Coca-Cola. It’s Just Sort of a Necessary Evil”: Community Pharmacists’ Perceptions of Front-of-Store Sales and Ethical Tensions in the Retail Environment. Exploratory Research in Clinical and Social Pharmacy, 2023.
Inaugural Artificial Intelligence for Public Health Practice (AI4PHP) Retreat: Ontario, Canada, 2023
Organ Donation and Transplantation and COVID-19. University of Ottawa Centre for Health Law, Policy and Ethics and The Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program, 2023
Hope for Health in the Anthropocene. In Climate Change and Animal Health, CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, 2022
Anchoring Action: The Need for Critical and Ethical Global Engagement. In Critical and Ethical Global Engagement: A Sourcebook of Concepts, Reflections, and Activities, University of Western Ontario, 2022
The Global Health Research Equity Assessment Tool (GHREAT): A Self-Reflexive Tool for Ethical Research Partnerships. In Critical and Ethical Global Engagement: A Sourcebook of Concepts, Reflections, and Activities, University of Western Ontario, 2022
Public Health Policymaking, Politics, and Evidence. In Integrating Science and Politics for Public Health, Palgrave Macmillan, 2022
Controlled Donation after Circulatory Determination of Death: A Scoping Review of Ethical Issues, Key Concepts and Arguments. Journal of Law, Medicine and Ethics, 2021
What Do We Mean by Critical and Ethical Global Engagement? Questions from a Research Partnership Between Universities in Canada and Rwanda. Global Public Health, 2021
Informing ‘Good’ Global Health Research Partnerships: A Scoping Review of Guiding Principles. Global Health Action, 2021
Exploring the Ethical Issues in Research using Digital Data Collection Strategies with Minors: A Scoping Review. PLOS One, 2020
Deploying the Precautionary Principle to Protect Vulnerable Populations in Canadian Post-Market Drug Surveillance. Canadian Journal of Bioethics, 2020
Four Equity Considerations for the use of Artificial Intelligence in Public Health. Bulletin of the World Health Organization, 2020
Ethical Issues Analysis. In Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: A Health Technology Assessment. Ottawa: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH). CADTH Optimal Use Report, 9(3b): 81-100, 2019
Ethical Issues Analysis. In Internet-Delivered Cognitive Behavioural Therapy for Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety Disorders: Patients’ Experiences and Perspectives, Implementation, and Ethical Issues. Ottawa: Canadian Agency for Drugs and Technologies in Health (CADTH). CADTH Optimal Use Report, 8(2b): 55-72.
AI and Ethics in Medical Radiation Sciences. Journal of Medical Imaging and Radiation Sciences, 2019
Political Legitimacy and Research Ethics. Bioethics, 2018
Systems Thinking and Ethics in Public Health: A Necessary and Mutually Beneficial Partnership. Monash Bioethics Review, 2018
Attending to Scalar Ethical Issues in Emerging Approaches to Environmental Health Research and Practice. Monash Bioethics Review, 2018
Victimless Vapour? Healthcare Organizations Should Restrict the Use of E-cigarettes. Canadian Journal of Public Health, 2016
Mass Evacuation. In Public Health Ethics: Cases Spanning the Globe, Springer, 2016
Ethical Considerations for the Reduction of Multifetal Pregnancies. Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons of Canada Online Bioethics Curriculum, 2015
What’s on the Menu for an Equitable Approach to Nutrition Labelling in Restaurants? Public Health Ethics, 2015
A Vaping Matter: E-cigarette Use in Healthcare Organizations. The Hastings Center Report, 2015
Much Ado about Omics: Welcome to 'The Permutome'. Journal of Evaluation in Clinical Practice, 2015
Protocols for Uncontrolled Donation After Circulatory Death. The Thin Red Line Between Life (Resuscitation Attempts) and Death (Organ Retrieval After Circulatory Death). In Organ Transplantation in Times of Donor Shortage: Challenges and Solutions, Springer, 2015
Casting Light and Doubt on Uncontrolled DCDD Protocols. The Hastings Center Report, 2013
Uncontrolled Donation after Circulatory Determination of Death Protocols: Ethical Challenges and Suggestions for Improvement. Annals of Emergency Medicine, 2013
Avoiding Violation of the Dead Donor Rule: The Costs to Patients. American Journal of Bioethics, 2012
The Not-So-Tell-Tale Heart. The Hastings Center Report, 2011
Response to Open Peer Commentaries on “Donation After Circulatory Death: Burying the Dead Donor Rule”. American Journal of Bioethics, 2011
Donation after Circulatory Death: Burying the Dead Donor Rule. American Journal of Bioethics, 2011
A Collective Reflection on the Current State of Bioethics Education. Journal of Healthcare, Science and the Humanities, 2011
Conceptualizing the ‘Self’ in Neuroethics: An Appeal to Philosophy of Mind. American Journal of Bioethics Neuroscience, 2010
Culture, Identity and Genomic Research. In New Challenges for Biobanks: Ethics, Law and Governance, Intersentia, 2009
All publications can be found on Google Scholar.