An Overview of Health Disparities in the Context of Public Health Ethics

2019 ◽  
pp. 257-265
Author(s):  
Andrew W. Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Socioeconomic Status ◽  
Social Justice ◽  
Health Disparities ◽  
Health Inequity ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
The Social ◽  
The Subject

Health disparities have increasingly become an important area of examination for public health ethics. This chapter provides an overview of the ethics of health disparities, one of the dedicated sections of The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics. It begins with background on health disparities and socioeconomic status, including a brief summary of some of the seminal research on the subject. It then provides an overview of the chapters in this section of the handbook, which address (1) the social determinants of health and the ethics and social justice arguments for reducing health disparities, (2) racial and ethnic health disparities, (3) some conflicts that arise between reducing health disparities and advancing population health, and (4) ethical considerations in the measurement of health inequity.

Measuring Health Inequity: A Public Health Ethics Inquiry

2019 ◽  
pp. 300-312
Author(s):  
Yukiko Asada
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Inequality ◽  
Health Inequity ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
The Third ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Definition Of Health ◽  
Definition Of ◽  
Interdisciplinary Integration

This chapter discusses ethical considerations that arise in three essential tasks for measuring health inequity in public health: defining health inequity, empirically operationalizing the chosen definition of health inequity, and quantifying the magnitude of health inequity. The first section introduces some of the definitions of health inequity and health inequality proposed in relevant literatures. The second section discusses some of the important strategies used to incorporate, explicitly and transparently, these various perspectives of health inequity into its measurement. The third section outlines some of the key ethical considerations that arise in choosing indices to quantify the magnitude of health inequity. Measurement of health inequity requires consideration of ethics, methods, and policy. Interdisciplinary integration of these three considerations is critical for its further advance.

scholarly journals Enhancing the Health of African Americans Using a Public Health Ethics Lens

2020 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rueben Warren
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
African Americans ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Historical Research ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Record Keeping ◽  
Individual Level ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Health Differences ◽  
The Individual

Health inequalities are preventable. Differences in health status chronicled by race, age, sex, income, or geographic locale have existed ever since federal record keeping began. Various terms describing these differences have created diversions for effectively addressing them. Some population terms include health risks, health differences, health markers, and health disparities. However, none of these descriptors influences health outcomes. At the individual level, deviations from health described as illness, sickness, and disease are often erroneously used interchangeably. Bioethics and public health ethics are essential to avoid repeating historical research and healthcare violations. Ignoring ethical considerations will delay health improvements among African Americans.

scholarly journals (IN)VISIBLE CHILDREN AND COVID-19: HUMAN TRAFFICKING IN PUBLIC HEALTH ETHICS

2020 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 47-54
Author(s):  
JAN GRESIL S. KAHAMBING
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Child Health ◽  
Human Trafficking ◽  
The Philippines ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Ethical Considerations ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Child Deaths

This paper appraises the link of public health ethics to human trafficking, especially on children. Taking from the more visible reports of child deaths from the virus, I focus on child health as an emphasis on how during this COVID-19 crisis, abuse and violence are also there albeit hidden. The range of clandestine operations concerning this issue in the Philippines seem to be broad and persistent. While local emergency ethics focuses on varying ways that contextualize – and locate special visible forms of – vulnerabilities from local citizens amid disasters, some vulnerabilities arise only within shrouded and surreptitious set-ups in public health ethics. Recognizing the hazards that lie in carefully categorizing visible and invisible vulnerabilities, human trafficking that preys on children is one invisible vulnerability that might gradually be pending in the sidelines. With the myriad of concerns on different fronts, there is a greater risk that this furtive issue might be treated subpar with other public health ethical considerations.

Reconciling Two Ethics Goals of Public Health: Reducing Health Disparities and Improving Population Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 289-300
Author(s):  
Norman Daniels
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Disparities ◽  
Distributive Justice ◽  
Procedural Justice ◽  
Population Health ◽  
Health Inequalities ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Health Needs ◽  
Deliberative Process ◽  
Health Ethics

Two central goals of public health—the traditional one of improving population health, and the more recent one of distributing that health fairly, including reducing health inequalities—are sometimes in tension. This chapter explores aspects of that tension, and argues that while we have social obligations to meet health needs, whatever their source, we may have extra reasons to reduce unjust health inequalities. A fair and deliberative process can reduce disagreements about what priority should be given to reducing health inequalities. The chapter examines issues of distributive justice and procedural justice, and how they interact with public health ethics.

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