A sociotechnical approach to vaccine manufacturer selection as part of a global immunization strategy against epidemics and pandemics

Abstract

These are unprecedented times while the world weathers the highly infectious respiratory pandemic caused by coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19). Humanity has experienced other cataclysmic events, but something as novel as this pandemic cannot be easily described. A safe COVID-19 vaccine is often hailed as the only effective public health method to prevent the further spread of this virus. New vaccines’ cost has increased even as policymakers struggle with limited resources and budget constraints. Thus, more decision-support tools are needed to facilitate the selection of vaccine manufacturers as part of a global immunization strategy against COVID-19 or other epidemics and pandemics. This study sought to address this issue by combining three well-established operational research methods (i.e., cognitive mapping, decision-making trial and evaluation laboratory, and the Choquet integral). Based on the insights provided by a panel of experts on vaccination and infectious diseases, a vaccine manufacturer selection mechanism was developed that incorporates the World Health Organization’s guidelines. This approach facilitated the identification of multiple selection criteria regarding vaccine manufacturers, their allocation into six major clusters (i.e., soundness of scientific approach and technology used ; speed of delivery ; cost ; liability and risk sharing ; ability to supply sufficient quantities through production capacity development ; and global solidarity ), and subsequent analysis of the respective cause-and-effect relationships. The results of a real-life application of the proposed selection system were further consolidated by a member of Saint Francisco Xavier Hospital Infectious Diseases Unit in Lisbon, Portugal. The mechanism’s advantages and limitations are also discussed.

Enhancing hospital resilience and planning capacity in scenarios of crisis using group decision‐making and interpretive structural modeling

“…Hospitals are complex social systems that are significantly improved by adequate organizational coordination, effective integration of members' attitudes and motivations, and good interpersonal relationships (Varela et al, 2023;Yuan & Ferreira, 2022). However, hospitals should constantly be updated, which generates new complications and challenges (Ferreira et al, 2022;Georgopoulos & Matejko, 1967). Events also create new complexities through interactions between these systems' various entities and components and the external environment.…”

Circular economy adoption barriers: An extended fuzzy best–worst method using fuzzy DEMATEL and Supermatrix structure

“…Hafezalkotob and Hafezalkotob (2017) developed a new fuzzy BWM via the combination of group and individual decisions, fuzzy theory, and linear BWM presented by Rezaei (2016). The literature review shows that although many efforts have been made to develop BWM (Kannan et al, 2021), DEMATEL (Ferreira, Kannan, et al, 2022; Ferreira, Spahr, et al, 2022; Govindan, 2022; Govindan et al, 2022) and only few studies have used the combination of BWM and DEMATEL to consider the interdependency among factors (Kannan, 2021; Liu et al, 2020; Yazdani et al, 2020; Yazdi et al, 2020). Therefore, to the best of the authors' knowledge, a combination of fuzzy BWM, fuzzy DEMATEL, and Supermatrix structure is introduced in this paper for the first time as a new MCDM method, to be called the FBWDS method.…”

Determination of Company Selection Criteria for an Applied Education Model and a Case Study at an Industrial University

“…Çalışmalar firma ve aday seçimi açısından değerlendirildiğinde; literatürde çoğunlukla firmaların aday seçtiği (F2A) çalışmaların [22], [23], [24], [25] ağırlık kazandığı görülmektedir. Ancak adayların veya üniversite gibi kurum/ kuruluşların firma seçtiği (A2F) çalışma sayısı oldukça sınırlıdır [8], [7].…”

“…Çözüm Yöntemleri Seçim Yapan Kişi/ Kuruluş (F2A / A2F) [8] İstatistiksel Analiz A2F [17] İstatistiksel Analiz F2A [18] İstatistiksel Analiz F2A [19] İstatistiksel Analiz F2A [20] Tanımlayıcı İstatistikler F2A [15] Niteliksel Analiz F2A [21] İstatistiksel Analiz F2A [7] Niteliksel Analiz A2F [22] İstatistiksel Analiz F2A [23] ÇKKV F2A [24] Karar Destek Sistemleri F2A [25] İstatistiksel Analiz F2A Bu çalışma ÇKKV A2F…”

“…Bu nedenle üniversiteler müfredatlarına işyerinde uygulamalı eğitim kavramını dahil etmeye başlamıştır [8]. İşyerinde uygulamalı eğitim kavramı literatürde, işyeri eğitimi [9], [10], [24], iş yeri uygulaması [12], iş yeri deneyimi [13], [14] olmak üzere üç ana başlık üzerinde ele alınmıştır.…”