Ethics

Vulnerability is a concept that remains poorly defined and widely debated. Its many applications in different contexts and disciplines are constantly transforming its contours and redefining its form. Thus, vulnerability can be seen as immanent to all forms of life, or it can be reduced to a potential risk of being injured or affected in a well-defined context (e.g., the risk of suffering from a respiratory disease in a context of repeated exposure to air pollution).

For ministries and organizations to be better positioned to collaboratively design new ways to reduce social inequalities in health (SIH), there is a need to clarify the pivotal role of reducing social inequalities across all levels of government and cross-sectoral efforts in preventing negative impacts on population health, and the potential contribution of multiple sectors to improving the health and well-being of the Québec population.​

The health of the population is…

How can we perceive and address ethical challenges in public health practice and policy? One way is by using ethical concepts to shed light on everyday practice. One does not have to be a specialist in ethics to do so. This document is part of a series of papers intended to introduce practitioners to some concepts, values, principles, theories and approaches that are important to public health ethics.

How can we perceive and address ethical challenges in public health practice and policy? One way is by using ethical concepts to inform our thinking. One does not have to be a specialist in ethics to do so. This document is part of a series of papers intended to introduce practitioners to some values, principles, theories and approaches that are important in public health ethics.

In this second¹ of three briefing notes² on public health ethics, we provide an overview of various philosophical and theoretical perspectives that have informed the development, evolution, and application of public health ethics throughout its short history. We believe it is important for public health practitioners to understand these ideas because they inform, either explicitly or implicitly, ethical decision making in public…

The first document in this series of briefing notes began with the observation that public health practitioners often struggle with ethical decisions in their practice but may not have relevant tools and resources to deal with these challenges. An assumption underlying this third paper is that by providing public health practitioners and decision makers with some guidance about practical public health ethics frameworks, they will be supported in making difficult ethical decisions that are……

Increasingly, the concept of solidarity is being brought into discussion as one of the principles and values that should guide the ethical practices of public health actors.¹ Reflecting on ethical issues specific to solidarity as it relates to public health practice appears worthwhile because solidarity is a concept that first and foremost concerns groups or communities of people. Viewed from this perspective, solidarity is a value that, for some authors, seems…

A public health ethics must begin with recognition of the values at the core of public health, not a modification of values used to guide other kinds of health care interactions (Baylis, Kenny, & Sherwin, 2008, p. 199).

Public health practitioners have long grappled with ethical issues in their practice but, until recently, there have been few relevant ethics frameworks that take into account the values base of public health.¹ Historically, those…

The purpose of this document is to equip public health actors to conduct an ethical analysis of policies that are said to be paternalistic. It aims to provide the conceptual tools needed to identify paternalistic policies and assess the ethical burden with which they may be associated. The document also offers practitioners a clear and structured approach intended to guide ethical deliberation about paternalistic policies.

This summary, produced in English and in French by the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP), was originally intended to provide francophone readers with easy access to the key information from the original published article, a literature review of the state of ethics education in schools of public health. We have also produced this English-language version for those who wish a short summary of the findings from the literature review. The authors of the review are…