Launched by agency DrawHistory, Undesign is a collection of conversations untangling today’s big social challenges. With our host Kosta Lucas, we speak directly and frankly about wicked problems with guests from influential global brands to fierce grassroots movements. Learn more at drawhistory.com.
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episode 4: COVID 19 and the enforcement of safety. Do mandates work? (Katie Atwell)
Our host, Kosta Lucas speaks with Dr Katie Atwell, Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia. Dr Atwell leads the large interdisciplinary research project “Coronavax: Preparing Community and Government” with colleagues from UWA and Telethon Kids Institute.
“....For every teacher who says—that’s it, I’m out of the classroom because I’m being coerced (to be vaccinated) —a parent with a kid will go—thank God, my kid would be a little bit safer to go to school this year”.
‘Vax’ was the Oxford word of the year in 2021, with ‘Strollout’ being the word of the year in Australia according to the Macquarie Dictionary.
The beginning of 2022 then became all about mandates, vaccine mandates being the main flashpoint of public contention. But do any of us actually really know what the term “mandate’ really means? We’ve seen the terms “mask mandate”, “vaccine mandate” and even policy mandate, applied to different COVID responses and settings. But what is a mandate really designed to do, how has it been implemented and is it actually effective as a lever of social policy implementation?
About Dr Atwell: Katie Attwell is a Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences, University of Western Australia and an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award Fellow. She is interested in the intersection of policy, identity, attitudes and behaviour as they pertain to health consumers, healthcare providers and governance. In 2014, Dr Attwell researched, designed, delivered and evaluated the internationally-recognised public health campaign, “I immunise”.