Synthesis and summary

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…

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…

Health in All Policies (HiAP) is an increasingly important approach for systematically addressing the social determinants of health at all levels of government. HiAP refers to “an approach to public policies across sectors that systematically takes into account the health implications of decisions, seeks synergies, and avoids harmful health impacts in order to improve population health and…

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…

Health impact assessment (HIA) is an intersectoral approach that entails a series of work meetings requiring the coordination of the various actors participating in the process.

This guide is mainly designed for the team responsible for carrying out an HIA but also for anyone who would participate in an HIA process.

It contains information that should help the team…

This document is part of a series of documents, webinars, and workshops on wicked problems developed by the National Collaborating Centre for Healthy Public Policy (NCCHPP). It is meant to highlight key factors and resources for dealing with wicked problems and to offer readers some practical examples for how these may be addressed. Our hope is that it will be useful to public health actors by…

This briefing note, by Paul Cairney of the University of Stirling, presents the importance of distinguishing between uncertainty and ambiguity in the strategies aimed to develop evidence-informed policy making.

Policy studies often distinguish between uncertainty, defined as a lack of knowledge about a policy problem or its solution, and ambiguity, defined as the potential to produce…

This article was first published in French in the October 2016 issue of the journal Le médecin du Québec.

Serology is a valuable tool for diagnosing certain sexually transmitted and blood-borne infections (STBBI) and for counselling patients on how to prevent their transmission. Failure to understand how to use it or how to assess its limitations may nevertheless be very…

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…