Vaccination is one of the most cost-effective and successful public health interventions to prevent infectious diseases. Governments worldwide have tried to optimize vaccination coverage, including using vaccine mandates. This review of recent literature and policy aims to provide a comprehensive overview of Malaysia’s childhood vaccination landscape. The document analysis was used to identify and examine information from government policy documents, official government media statements, mainstream news content, and research papers. Content analysis was then employed to analyze the gathered information. Despite the successes of Malaysia’s National Immunization Programme, a resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases has raised concerns about vaccine hesitancy and refusal. Several contributing factors have been identified, including a preference for alternative medicines, doubts about halal status, fear of vaccine injury, concerns about the vaccines’ contents, conspiracy theories, as well as convenience and access barriers. While various initiatives have been implemented, Malaysia may consider using vaccine mandates, as several countries have recently done, as a potential policy intervention to address these challenges. This review benefits policymakers, epidemiologists, as well as researchers involved in regional or global policy planning and advocacy efforts. It also offers comprehensive insights into designing effective interventions and making informed policy decisions regarding childhood vaccination programmes.

Many governments employed mandates for COVID-19 vaccines, imposing consequences upon unvaccinated people. Attitudes towards these policies have generally been positive, but little is known about how discourses around them changed as the characteristics of the disease and the vaccinations evolved. Western Australia (WA) employed sweeping COVID-19 vaccine mandates for employment and public spaces whilst the state was closed off from the rest of the country and world, and mostly with no COVID-19 in the community. This article analyses WA public attitudes during the mandate policy lifecycle from speculative to real. Qualitative interview data from 151 adults were analysed in NVivo 20 via a novel chronological analysis anchored in key policy phases: no vaccine mandates, key worker vaccine mandates, vaccine mandates covering 75% of the workforce and public space mandates. Participants justified mandates as essential for border reopening and, less frequently, for goals such as protecting the health system. However, public discourse focusing on ‘getting coverage rates up’ may prove counter-productive for building support for vaccination; governments should reinforce end goals in public messaging (reducing suffering and saving lives) because such messaging is likely to be more meaningful to vaccination behaviour in the longer term.

Objectives: To investigate psychotherapy training for psychiatry trainees in N.Ireland.

Method: A detailed survey of both trainee's current experience and completion of Royal College requirements.

Results: While trainees rated experience highly in terms of enjoyment and relevance to psychiatry, we found a large proportion (94%) were failing to meet requirements for psychotherapy training, despite awareness being high (91%). Both cognitive-behavioural and psychodynamic therapy were the predominant models of therapy trainees had experience in and although most supervision was rated highly, a number of trainees had irregular or no case supervision.

Conclusions: At a time when it is becoming increasingly recognised that psychological therapies play a central role in the treatment of many psychiatric disorders, current training fails to provide a substantial experience. With such a high proportion of trainees not meeting the mandatory requirements and similar findings being replicated in other parts of the UK, serious consideration must be given to both the nature of the guidelines and the opportunities for psychotherapy training if future psychiatrists are going to be equipped to deliver a truly biopsychosocial model of care.