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 involved in health care ethics and bioethics more generally have failed to provide public health practitioners with guidance geared to their unique ethical concerns. Until relatively recently, a rights-based deontological approach (Zahner, 2000), or the...