Jon’s research interests are mainly within moral and political philosophy, with a special emphasis on both public health ethics and the concept, value and practice of security. His doctoral thesis analysed the concept and value of security, arguing that to be secure an individual must reliably enjoy a set of necessary goods (e.g. bodily integrity, adequate nutrition, shelter, basic liberties, etc.). Jon is currently applying this notion of security to answer questions arising from the provision of healthcare in emergency contexts and the allocation of resources to global public health emergencies.
SURVEILLE Advisory Service
Jon’s primary role is to evaluate the performance of an Advisory Service being offered as part of the SURVEILLE project. More details regarding the evaluation can be found here
The Concept of Health Security
Building on work from his doctoral thesis, Jon is exploring the concept of health security and its role in global health decision-making. Of particular interest is whether the value of health security justifies the allocation of resources to protect populations from potentially catastrophic and deeply uncertain risks to their health (such as fast-moving zoonoses, pandemic influenza and bioterrorism), as opposed to alleviating ongoing, serious and well-characterised threats (such as HIV/AIDS, malaria, cardiovascular disease).
Public Health Emergencies
The declaration of a public health emergency (PHE) is typically thought to justify the use of otherwise impermissible public health interventions, such as the detention of individuals, mandatory treatment regimes and restrictions on travel and trade. Jon hope’s to identify the features of PHE's - scale, impact, uncertainty and rapidity - which might justify such a state of moral exception.