scholarly journals It Didn’t Have to be This Way Reflections on the Ethical Justification of the Running Ban in Northern Italy in Response to the 2020 COVID-19 Outbreak

2020 ◽  
Vol 17 (4) ◽  
pp. 643-648
Author(s):  
Silvia Camporesi
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Support ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Societal Implications ◽  
The Public ◽  
Freedom Of Movement ◽  
Ethics Framework ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
History Of

AbstractIn this paper I discuss the ethical justifiability of the limitation of freedom of movement, in particular of the ban on running outdoors, enforced in Italy as a response to the COVID-19 outbreak in the spring of 2020. I argue that through the lens of public health ethics literature, the ban on running falls short of the criterion of proportionality that public health ethics scholars and international guidelines for the ethical management of infectious disease outbreak recommend for any measure that restricts essential individual freedoms, such as the freedom of movement. The public health ethics framework, however, falls short of explaining the widespread public support that the running ban has had in Italy. I discuss possible factors which could explain the public support for the ban in Italy. Finally, I raise the question of what societal implications the abandonment of the public health ethics framework based on proportionality might have. I conclude that if it is the case, as the history of pandemics teaches us, we will experience further waves of COVID-19 outbreaks, it becomes very important to raise these questions now, with an eye towards informing public health policies for the management of future COVID-19 outbreaks. This discussion should not become politicized along the lines of liberal pro-lockdown/conservative anti-lockdown. Instead, we should reflect on the trade-offs of lockdown policies according to a pluralist framework, in which COVID-19 related deaths are not the only possible value to pursue.

scholarly journals The public health ethics framework and implications for COVID-19

2020 ◽  
pp. S98-S99
Author(s):  
AC Lundgren ◽  
HR Etheredge
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Ethics Framework ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Ethical Thinking

The current COVID-19 pandemic may require a shift in our ethical thinking – away from the widely endorsed framework of patientcentred care towards “public health ethics”. At its core, public health ethics works towards the welfare of a majority in society, and as such, it is not usually applied to individual patients, but rather to a collective (for instance, society as a whole). This may call on us to redirect our efforts away from tirelessly promoting the autonomy of individual patients, towards the welfare of patients as a collective. During COVID-19, this confers a duty not only to existing patients under our care, but also to patients who may present with COVID-19.

scholarly journals The Ethics of Tobacco Harm Reduction: An Analysis of E-Cigarette Availability From the Perspectives of Utilitarianism, Bioethics, and Public Health Ethics

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Thomas ◽  
Lisa S Parker ◽  
Saul Shiffman
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Harm Reduction ◽  
Biomedical Ethics ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Individual Autonomy ◽  
Tobacco Harm Reduction ◽  
Reduction Strategy ◽  
Ethics Framework ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Harm Reduction Strategy

Abstract Much evidence suggests e-cigarettes are substantially less harmful than combustible cigarettes. Assuming this is true, we analyze the ethical case for a policy of e-cigarette availability (ECA) as a tobacco harm reduction strategy. ECA involves making e-cigarettes available to allow smokers to switch to them, and informing smokers of the lower risks of e-cigarettes vis-à-vis smoking. After suggesting that utilitarian/consequentialist considerations do not provide an adequate ethical analysis, we analyze ECA using two other ethical frameworks. First, ECA is supported by a public health ethics framework. ECA is a population-level intervention consistent with respecting individual autonomy by using the least restrictive means to accomplish public health goals, and it supports equity and justice. Second, ECA is supported by four principles that form a biomedical ethics framework. By reducing smokers’ health risks and not harming them, ECA fulfills principles of beneficence and non-maleficence. Because ECA allows smokers to make informed health decisions for themselves, it fulfills the principle requiring respect for persons and their autonomy. Here, we consider whether nicotine addiction and thus ECA undermine autonomy, and also discuss the ethical warrant for special protections for youth. Finally, ECA can also advance justice by providing a harm reduction alternative for disadvantaged groups that disproportionately bear the devastating consequences of smoking. Policies of differential taxation of cigarettes and e-cigarettes can facilitate adoption of less harmful alternatives by those economically disadvantaged. We conclude that public health and biomedical ethics frameworks are mutually reinforcing and supportive of ECA as a tobacco harm reduction strategy. Implications Making e-cigarettes and information about them available is supported as ethical from multiple ethical perspectives.

scholarly journals Transparency, trust, and community welfare: towards a precision public health ethics framework for the genomics era

2020 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Eric T. Juengst ◽  
Annelies Van Rie
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Paradigm Shift ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Ethical Framework ◽  
Infectious Disease Control ◽  
Ethics Framework ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Precision Public Health ◽  
Sequencing Technologies ◽  
Genomics Research

AbstractInfectious disease control is experiencing a paradigm shift, as pathogen sequencing technologies and digital applications are increasingly implemented for control of diseases such as tuberculosis, Ebola, and COVID-19. A new ethical framework should be a critical part of this emerging paradigm to ensure that the benefit of precision public health interventions based on advances in genomics research is not outweighed by the risks they pose to individuals, families, and vulnerable segments of the population. We suggest that the ethical framework guiding practice in this domain combines standard precepts from public health ethics with emerging ethics principles from precision medicine.

scholarly journals The two most important questions for ethical public health

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
John Coggon ◽  
Lawrence O Gostin
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Public Health Community ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Health Community ◽  
Theoretical Question ◽  
Practical Question

AbstractPublic health ethics is a distinct and established field, and it is important that its approaches and rationales are understood widely in the public health community. Such understanding includes the capacity to identify and combine principled and practical concerns in public health. In this paper, we present a background to the ideas that motivate public health ethics as a field of research and practice, and rationalize these through a critical ethico-legal approach to analysis. Two essential points of inquiry are identified and formulated to allow philosophical and practical agendas regarding public health to be combined. These come through asking the theoretical question ‘what makes health public?’; and the practical question ‘how do we make health public?’. We argue that these two questions require to be addressed if we are to achieve a robust and rigorous, ethical public health.

Value-driven workforce, systems and leadership

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
F Tahzib
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Workforce ◽  
Moral Distress ◽  
Code Of Ethics ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Public Health Workforce ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Organisational Values

Abstract Background Our norms and values are key to decision making, policy and practice. Some commentators have highlighted need for greater courage and purpose in public health leaders and systems. There is need for greater appreciation of moral mandate of public health and implications for public health system leadership and capacity building activities and practice Objectives Demonstrate the case for value-driven workforce, systems and leadership Share key findings and learning from research by the Faculty of public health around the public health values, and activities to build capacity and competency around the issue. Body of the session Surveys of the public health workforce and schools of public health have consistently highlighted need for education and training in public health ethics and law for some time and their key role for effective public health policy and practice. In this presentation there will be demonstration of the key findings of the surveys and their consequences, including moral distress for the workforce and potential failings of public health systems Some key activities and initiatives in building competency and capacity in public health ethics and law will be described. This will include activities to develop organisational values and professional values and the important distinctions between them, and development of public health code of ethics and professional conduct as part of efforts for professionalisation of the public health workforce. Conclusions Value-driven workforce, systems and leadership are key in meeting complex public health challenges. Building competency and capacity of the workforce and public health institutions are important part of the agenda.

scholarly journals THE PUBLIC IN PUBLIC HEALTH ETHICS: THE PUBLIC HEALTH SOCIETY RESPONDS

2004 ◽  
Vol 94 (1) ◽  
pp. 7-7
Author(s):  
Terry Brandenburg ◽  
James Guillory ◽  
Alan Melnick ◽  
James C. Thomas ◽  
Clayton Williams
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Ethics

scholarly journals Βιοηθική και δημόσια υγεία: από τη δεκαετία 1970 στην πανδημία COVID-19

Bioethica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (1) ◽  
pp. 6
Author(s):  
Aikaterini A Aspradaki
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Strong Relationship ◽  
Public Health Research ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
System Reform ◽  
Global Public Health ◽  
Public Health Genetics ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Ethics

The strong relationship between bioethics and public health has been put forward since the early 1970s. The HIV/AIDS epidemic, erupted in the 1980s, serves as a catalyst for the broadening of the bioethics frameworks by the inclusion of ethical issues faced in public health. From the beginning of the 21st century, public health ethics has been emerged as a discipline and has been established as a subfield of bioethics.Topics in public health ethics include, among others, the public health research, the ethics and infectious disease control, the ethics of health promotion and disease prevention, the ethical issues in environmental and occupational health, the public health and health system reform: allocation of resources, access, priority setting, the international collaboration for global public health, the vulnerability and marginalized populations, the public health genetics, the public health genomics. The COVID-19 pandemic seems to constitute an area of conceptual and practical overlapping of all the above-mentioned topics and gives huge boost to research interest for public health bioethics.This paper explains the relationship between bioethics and public health through two time periods and, in particular, the “early” 1970s- 1990s era and the2000s & 2010s that is the period of the emergence and establishment of public health ethics marked, at the end, by the COVID-19 pandemic.

“Public Health, Public Goods, and Market Failure”

2019 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 287-292 ◽  
Author(s):  
L Chad Horne
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Goods ◽  
Market Failure ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Recent Criticism ◽  
Market Failures ◽  
The Public ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Health Related

Abstract This discussion revises and extends Jonny Anomaly's ‘public goods’ account of public health ethics in light of recent criticism from Richard Dees. Public goods are goods that are both non-rival and non-excludable. What is significant about such goods is that they are not always provided efficiently by the market. Indeed, the state can sometimes realize efficiency gains either by supplying such goods directly or by compelling private purchase. But public goods are not the only goods that the market may fail to provide efficiently. This point to a way of broadening the public goods account of public health to accommodate Dees' counterexamples, without abandoning its distinctive appeal. On the market failures approach to public health ethics, the role of public health is to correct public health-related market failures of all kinds, so far as possible. The underlying moral commitment is to economic efficiency in the sense of Pareto: if we can re-allocate resources in the economy so as to raise the welfare of some without lowering the welfare of any other, we ought to do so.

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