Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Section I Information problems
- Section II End of life care
- Section III Pregnant women and children
- Section IV Genetics and biotechnology
- Section V Research ethics
- Section VI Health systems and institutions
- Introduction
- 32 Organizational ethics
- 33 Priority setting
- 34 Disclosure of medical error
- 35 Conflict of interest in education and patient care
- 36 Public health ethics
- 37 Emergency and disaster scenarios
- 38 Rural healthcare ethics
- 39 Community healthcare ethics
- Section VII Using clinical ethics to make an impact in healthcare
- Section VIII Global health ethics
- Section IX Religious and cultural perspectives in bioethics
- Section X Specialty bioethics
- Index
- References
36 - Public health ethics
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 30 October 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of contributors
- Acknowledgements
- 1 Introduction
- Section I Information problems
- Section II End of life care
- Section III Pregnant women and children
- Section IV Genetics and biotechnology
- Section V Research ethics
- Section VI Health systems and institutions
- Introduction
- 32 Organizational ethics
- 33 Priority setting
- 34 Disclosure of medical error
- 35 Conflict of interest in education and patient care
- 36 Public health ethics
- 37 Emergency and disaster scenarios
- 38 Rural healthcare ethics
- 39 Community healthcare ethics
- Section VII Using clinical ethics to make an impact in healthcare
- Section VIII Global health ethics
- Section IX Religious and cultural perspectives in bioethics
- Section X Specialty bioethics
- Index
- References
Summary
A 42-year-old female sees her family physician for a vaginal discharge. She and her physician have a long-standing doctor–patient relationship, as well as a personal friendship. Three weeks previously, the patient had been to a sales convention in Reno and committed a “marital indiscretion.” She is worried she may have a sexually transmitted disease (STD). She gives consent for her physician to do the appropriate diagnostic work-up and treatment, but states that if this is an STD she doesn't want her physician to report it to the public health authorities, nor to tell her husband, with whom she has had sexual intercourse since her return from the convention two weeks ago.
What is public health ethics?
Public health has been described as the science and art of promoting and protecting health, preventing disease, prolonging life and improving quality of life through the organized efforts of society (Last, 2001). It achieves these goals using community interventions, disease control, and principles of epidemiology and biometry. Public health ethics is concerned with the ethical issues raised by such community and population-based approaches to health problems.
While the goals of public health and clinical medicine are to increase well-being, the latter uses individual action and intervention for the good of individual well-being, while the former uses a social approach to improving the good of communities.
- Type
- Chapter
- Information
- The Cambridge Textbook of Bioethics , pp. 274 - 280Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2008
References
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