Ethics and Public Health Policy

Ethics and Public Health Policy Forum

Policy Development is one of the three core functions of public health. Effective public health policies are based upon epidemiology, ethics, economics and public health law.  This session will be devoted to a review and a discussion of principles of ethics and their impact on policy. 

At a recent AAPHP meeting (October 30, 2:30 - 3:30 PM)  Ethical principles were reveiwed using material (http://pahcwfluvax.org/ethics-policy-overview/)  developed by the  Pennsylvania Department of Health and the Cente for Vaccine Ethics and Policy at the University of Pennsylvania ( http://centerforvaccineethicsandpolicy.org/.  Those principles include autonomy, beneficence, nonmalificience and John Stuart Mill's harm principle.   The material was developed as part of the discussion of mandatory health care worker vaccination against influenza (http://pahcwfluvax.org).  Nevertheless, the principles are applicable to an informed discussion of policies including tobacco control and health care reform.

As a result of that discussion, the Tobacco Control Task Force of the American Association of Public Health Physicians developed our tobacco related principles - available at aaphp.org/tobacco.

In this electronic forum, members and guests sincerely interested in discussing AAPHP current and future policies (including tobacco available at aaphp.org/tobacco) are invited to engage in constructive discourse.