Ethics of Population-Based Research

2007 ◽  
Vol 35 (2) ◽  
pp. 295-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Holly A. Taylor ◽  
Summer Johnson

Multiple scholars and institutions have asked what distinguishes public health research from public health practice. Most often, they ask in order to have a clear definition of what one does in various public health settings to assess oversight and/or regulation of human subjects research. More importantly, however, whether something is considered public health research or public health practice has real ethical implications in terms of the general moral considerations at stake and the obligations of public health researchers/practitioners to the populations they serve or study.Numerous examples in recent history of research ethics, including the Kennedy Krieger Lead Abatement Study and EPA’s Children’s Environmental Exposure Research Study (CHEERS), suggest that an exploration of the ethics of public health, or more generally population-based research, may be warranted. Although we acknowledge that there are important ethical issues to consider in the implementation of public health practice, we leave that discussion for other authors.

2020 ◽  
Vol 13 (1) ◽  
pp. 111-121 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart Rennie ◽  
Mara Buchbinder ◽  
Eric Juengst ◽  
Lauren Brinkley-Rubinstein ◽  
Colleen Blue ◽  
...  

Abstract Web scraping involves using computer programs for automated extraction and organization of data from the Web for the purpose of further data analysis and use. It is frequently used by commercial companies, but also has become a valuable tool in epidemiological research and public health planning. In this paper, we explore ethical issues in a project that “scrapes” public websites of U.S. county jails as part of an effort to develop a comprehensive database (including individual-level jail incarcerations, court records and confidential HIV records) to enhance HIV surveillance and improve continuity of care for incarcerated populations. We argue that the well-known framework of Emanuel et al. (2000) provides only partial ethical guidance for the activities we describe, which lie at a complex intersection of public health research and public health practice. We suggest some ethical considerations from the ethics of public health practice to help fill gaps in this relatively unexplored area.


2021 ◽  
pp. 261-272
Author(s):  
Nancy Kass ◽  
Amy Paul ◽  
Andrew Siegel

Public health ethics considers moral dimensions of public health practice and research. While medical ethics dates back hundreds of years, and bioethics writings emerged in the 1960s and 1970s, ‘public health ethics’, articulated as such, did not appear significantly in the literature for several more decades. There has been great interest recently in defining public health ethics, examining how it resembles or differs from medical ethics or bioethics, outlining frameworks and codes, and providing conceptual and practical guidance on how ethics can inform public health practice and research. This chapter describes the emergence of public health ethics; work in bioethics with relevance for public health; the relevance of social justice theory in addressing public health problems; and discusses literature on ethics and public health research, including whether public health research ethics might differ from ethical guidance for other human research. The chapter concludes with an overview of ethics issues related to genetic research and emerging technologies.


2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (5) ◽  
pp. 9-14
Author(s):  
R. Bayer ◽  
A. L. Fairchild ◽  
M. Zignol ◽  
K. G. Castro

In June 2017, the World Health Organization issued the Guidelines on Ethical Issues in Public Health Surveillance. Using the frame of public health ethics, the guidance declared that countries have an affirmative duty to undertake surveillance and that the global community had an obligation to support those countries whose resources limited their capacity. The centrality of TB surveillance has long been recognized as a matter of public health practice and ethics. Nevertheless, contemporary global realities make clear that TB surveillance falls far short of the goal of uniform notification. It is this reality that necessitated the paradoxical turn to research studies that require informed consent and human subjects' ethical review, the very burdens that mandated notification were designed to overcome.


2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (4) ◽  
pp. 654-662 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott Burris ◽  
Lance Gable ◽  
Lesley Stone ◽  
Zita Lazzarini

“Public health practice” consists of activities and Programs managed by public health agencies to promote health and prevent disease, injury, and disability. Some of these activities might be deemed to fit within the broad definition of “research” under federal regulations, known as the Common Rule, designed to protect human research subjects. The Common Rule defines research as “a systeniatic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.” Public health activities that might under some circumstances be considered research include disease reporting, review of medical records, surveys, interviews, focus groups, specimen collection (blood, urine, etc.), and laboratory testing (both identifiable and anonymous).There are questions about the extent to which the Common Rule applies or was intended to apply to public health practice: and it has been suggested in any case that Common Rule regulation of public health practice may not be socially optimal for both practical and principled reasons.


1996 ◽  
Vol 12 (4) ◽  
pp. 67-70 ◽  
Author(s):  
Stuart A. Capper ◽  
W. Jack Duncan ◽  
Peter M. Ginter ◽  
Clyde Barganier ◽  
Nancy Blough ◽  
...  

1970 ◽  
Vol 1 (3) ◽  
pp. 15-21
Author(s):  
Abu Sadat Mohammad Nurunnabi ◽  
Mahmood Uz Jahan ◽  
Shaorin Tanira

Public health is the societal approach to protecting and promoting health. Public health ethics can be defined as the identification, analysis, and resolution of ethical problems arising in public health practice and research. The emerging interest in ethical issues in public health research and practice reflects both the important societal role of public health and the growing public interest in the scientific integrity of health information and the equitable distribution of health care resources. This article provides an overview of ethical issues in public health research for young researchers and readers who do not necessarily have an in-depth knowledge of public health ethics. A framework of ethics analysis geared specifically for public health is needed to provide practical guidance for public health professionals and researchers in Bangladesh. Bangladesh Medical Research Council is playing a role in setting a standard in the field of biomedical research including public health concerning its strategy and ethical issues and by helping different health institutes to build up a research environment. Though public policy is based on many factors in addition to public health goals and ethical reasoning, it should not lead to the politically preferable option for a given time. DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.3329/bioethics.v1i3.9630 Bangladesh Journal of Bioethics 2010; 1(3): 15-21


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