scholarly journals From General Principles to Procedural Values: Responsible Digital Health Meets Public Health Ethics

2021 ◽  
Vol 3 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rune Nyrup
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Ethical Decision Making ◽  
Digital Health ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Digital Ethics ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Accountability For Reasonableness ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Procedural Values

Most existing work in digital ethics is modeled on the “principlist” approach to medical ethics, seeking to articulate a small set of general principles to guide ethical decision-making. Critics have highlighted several limitations of such principles, including (1) that they mask ethical disagreements between and within stakeholder communities, and (2) that they provide little guidance for how to resolve trade-offs between different values. This paper argues that efforts to develop responsible digital health practices could benefit from paying closer attention to a different branch of medical ethics, namely public health ethics. In particular, I argue that the influential “accountability for reasonableness” (A4R) approach to public health ethics can help overcome some of the limitations of existing digital ethics principles. A4R seeks to resolve trade-offs through decision-procedures designed according to certain shared procedural values. This allows stakeholders to recognize decisions reached through these procedures as legitimate, despite their underlying disagreements. I discuss the prospects for adapting A4R to the context of responsible digital health and suggest questions for further research.

Ethical principles and ethical issues in public health

2021 ◽  
pp. 261-272
Author(s):  
Nancy Kass ◽  
Amy Paul ◽  
Andrew Siegel
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Health Research ◽  
Public Health Practice ◽  
Public Health Research ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Health Practice ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
1960S And 1970S ◽  
Social Justice Theory

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.

Workshop on Public Health Law and Ethics I & II: The Challenge of Public/Private Partnerships (PPPs)

2003 ◽  
Vol 31 (S4) ◽  
pp. 90-93 ◽  
Author(s):  
Michael R. Reich ◽  
Jody Henry Hershey ◽  
George E. Hardy ◽  
James F. Childress ◽  
Ruth Gaare Bernheim
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Medical Ethics ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
University Of Minnesota ◽  
Moral Principles ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Law And Ethics ◽  
Public Health Officials ◽  
The University ◽  
Public Health Practitioners

The issue of public health ethics has received much attention in recent years and is seen as a new field, distinct from medical ethics. Faculty from the University of Virginia, Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, Georgetown University, the University of Minnesota, and others received a grant from the Greenwall Foundation to examine this new field of public health ethics and identify the unique principles that distinguish it from the study of medical ethics. In the course of that study, which included exploring the field with public health practitioners, a number of distinguishing ethical principles emerged. The moral principles appropriate for public health officials included producing benefits; avoiding, preventing and removing harms; producing a maximum balance of benefits over harms; and distributing benefits and burdens fairly.

Health Systems Stewardship, Governance, and Accountability: Issues of Public Health Ethics

2019 ◽  
pp. 114-126
Author(s):  
Michael J. DiStefano ◽  
Jennifer Prah Ruger
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Health Systems ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
World Health ◽  
Policy And Practice ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
The World ◽  
Health Policy And Practice ◽  
Health Organization

This chapter argues that stewardship ought to be conceived as a particular form of governance that is the role of both governments and intergovernmental and extragovernmental bodies to carry out. Stewardship as ethically conscientious governance is grounded in an explicit normative commitment to the promotion of justice, including both consequentialist and deontological claims, as part of public health policy and practice. The justification of trade-offs and resolution of tensions among various objectives requires robust accountability mechanisms tied to ethical questions about defining the public good. This chapter describes a range of accountability mechanisms that can function for a variety of governmental and nongovernmental actors. It then explores issues of public health ethics regarding the ways in which specific health systems stewards—including states, the World Bank, and the World Health Organization (WHO)—are held accountable.

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.

An Overview of Ethics and Environmental Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 697-703
Author(s):  
David B. Resnik
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Environmental Health ◽  
Environmental Ethics ◽  
Ethical Issues ◽  
Biomedical Ethics ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Social Utility ◽  
Toxic Substances ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Wide Range

This chapter provides an overview of the ethics of environmental health, and it introduces five chapters in the related section of The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics. A wide range of ethical issues arises in managing the relationship between human health and the environment, including regulation of toxic substances, air and water pollution, waste management, agriculture, the built environment, occupational health, energy production and use, environmental justice, population control, and climate change. The values at stake in environmental health ethics include those usually mentioned in ethical debates in biomedicine and public health, such as autonomy, social utility, and justice, as well as values that address environmental concerns, such as animal welfare, stewardship of biological resources, and sustainability. Environmental health ethics, therefore, stands at the crossroads of several disciplines, including public health ethics, environmental ethics, biomedical ethics, and business ethics.

An Overview of the Ethics of Injury in Public Health

2019 ◽  
pp. 597-603
Author(s):  
Adnan A. Hyder
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Injury Prevention ◽  
Prevention And Control ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Ethical Challenges ◽  
Middle Income ◽  
Middle Income Countries ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Prompt Attention ◽  
And Control

This chapter briefly introduces ethics issues in injury prevention and control in low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), using a series of examples that prompt attention to the ethical principles of autonomy and justice. The chapter also introduces the section of The Oxford Handbook of Public Health Ethics dedicated to an examination of injury and public health ethics, with attention given to the complex ethical challenges arising in injury prevention and control in LMICs. The section’s two chapters discuss public health ethics issues arising in the prevention and control of unintentional injuries and intentional injuries, respectively. Those chapters define a set of ethics issues within international injury work and provide an initial analysis of the nature of those ethics issues, their specificity, and potential pathways for addressing them.

scholarly journals Innovative methods in teaching public health ethics. The need to adapt to the new times: from challenge to opportunity

2020 ◽  
Vol 30 (Supplement_5) ◽  
Author(s):  
A Buron Pust ◽  
A Segura
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Teaching Strategies ◽  
Flipped Classroom ◽  
Role Playing ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Master Of Public Health ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Parliamentary Debate ◽  
Massive Online Open Courses ◽  
Open Courses

Abstract Background Public Health Ethics (PHE) has been taught first as optional and later as a mandatory subject in the Master of Public Health in Barcelona for about 6 years. During these years, professors have adapted the methodology to make it more attractive and to maximize students' participation and time spent debating and practicing moral reasoning. Objectives To showcase 3 different teaching strategies or methods, presenting for each of them: resources required, outcomes so far in terms of satisfaction and exam performance, as well as the pros and cons from the teacher's perspective. Results Flipped-classroom strategy: theoretical content is delivered outside the classroom, and the practice into the classroom. Works well but needs incentives for compliance in reading. Versatile debating Methods: from parliamentary debate, to role-playing, online debate, etc. Depending on the Case-study, some work better than others; in the online they practice written deliberation skills, but it is important to set rules. MOOC: Massive Online Open Courses in PHE. Can be used as independent teaching material, it is a great tool to introduce PHE into other PH areas and non-teaching environments. Conclusions So far, these methods have proven to increase students' motivation and engagement in Public Health Ethics. Key messages Practising reflection and debating skills is an essential part of PHE. Modern teaching strategies, more interactive and online-based, can help maximising the time spent in these activities. Although challenging and time-consuming at first, these methods also increase students' interest in PHE.

A Public Health Ethics Model of Countering Violent Extremism

2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (2) ◽  
pp. 324-337
Author(s):  
Neil D. Shortland ◽  
Nicholas Evans ◽  
John Colautti
Keyword(s):  
Public Health ◽  
Public Health Ethics ◽  
Health Ethics ◽  
Violent Extremism
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