Background:   Clinical outcomes for patients treated in public and private hospitals may be different. Aim:   To compare the characteristics and outcomes of patients receiving dialysis at public and private hospitals in Queensland. Methods:   Incident adult dialysis patients in Queensland registered with the Australia and New Zealand Dialysis ...

The aims of two ethical seminars for prison staff are outlined and an evaluation of the impact on those attending is given. The possible future use of such seminars for prison staff and possibly for public health practitioners is mentioned.

In 2008 the authors held "Involving Interface," a lively interdisciplinary event focusing on issues of biological, sociocultural, and technological interfacing (see Acknowledgments). Inspired by discussions at this event, in this article, we further discuss the value of input from neuroscience for developing robots and machine interfaces, and the value of ...

A small series of pilot seminars on ethics and values in prison practice have been held over the past two years. This article outlines the background, the content and the relevance to prison staff. It concludes that a full trial of the approach for both staff and prisoners would seem ...

According to our previous research, the use of glory holes in public venues such as saunas and bathhouses is very popular. The popularity of glory holes is due in part to the anonymous sex that these architectural elements allow. This post-structuralist theoretical reflection seeks to understand the specific nature of ...

Healthcare professionals, patients and their relatives are expected to discuss resuscitation together. This study aims to identify the differences in the knowledge base and understanding of these parties. Questionnaires examining knowledge and opinion on resuscitation matters were completed during interviews of randomly selected doctors, nurses and the general public. 70% ...

General concepts and about medical disasters, public health and triage are outlined. Ethical values at stake are summarized. A special attention is given to conflicts between protection of individual interests (typical of clinical ethics) and collective interests (typical of public health and triage). Hippocratic ethics is compared to utilitarian ethics ...

The aim of the study was to investigate the legal and ethical concerns raised from the use of photographs and images in medical publication. A search in the pertinent literature was performed. It is of paramount importance that the patient's autonomy, privacy and confidentiality is respected. In all cases in ...

The new Consumer Alliance agreement between the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP) and The Coca-Cola Company provides a valuable opportunity to illustrate AAFP's adherence to its ethical foundation, demonstrate the AAFP's commitment to serving physicians and the public, and maintain the trust Americans put in their family physicians and ...

Scientific disputes about public health issues can become emotional battlefields marked by strong emotions like anger, contempt, and disgust. Contemporary work in moral psychology demonstrates that each of these emotions is a reaction to a specific type of moral violation. Applying this work to harm reduction debates, specifically the use ...

Evidence-based medicine (EBM) has been effective because it confers both epistemic and moral authority, promising that both individual patient care and public health interventions are effective, safe and efficient, that these decisions and standards can be determined (and therefore judged) in a transparent manner and that this form of decision ...

The public discourse surrounding sex and severe disability over the past 40 years has largely focused on protecting vulnerable populations from abuse. However, health professionals and activists are increasingly recognising the inherent sexuality of disabled persons and attempting to find ways to accommodate their intimacy needs. This essay explores several ...

This article uses notions of "public talk" and "regulation as facilitation" to develop an account of public bioethics in the UK as a form of scientific governance, drawing on document analysis and expert interviews. First, this article will show the "ethical" problematization of scientific governance in the UK through the ...

La Disparidad en Salud (DS) ha llamado la atención pública desde el siglo pasado, ha sido analizada desde diversas perspectivas y enfoques incluso variados términos han sido utilizados como sinónimos pudiendo llevar a confusión e inequidades al momento de su operacionalización. Sin embargo es importante señalar que las publicaciones coinciden ...

General concepts about medical disasters, public health and triage are outlined. Triage is described in the context of public health emergencies and disaster settings, and the main ethical values at stake in triage are discussed. Possible conflicts between competing values are outlined. Special attention is given to possible conflicts between ...

Increasingly widespread adoption of health information technology tools in clinical care increases interest in ethical and legal issues related to the use of these tools for public health and the effects of these uses on the clinician-patient relationship. It is argued that patients, clinicians, and society have generally uncontroversial duties ...

The article is divided into three sections: (i) an overview of the main ethical models in public health (theoretical foundations); (ii) a summary of several published frameworks for public health ethics (practical frameworks); and (iii) a few general remarks. Rather than maintaining the superiority of one position over the others, ...

Canada is in the forefront of thinking about the unique and complex issues of contemporary public health ethics. However, an inordinate focus on the urgent issues of emergency preparedness in pandemic and reliance on bioethical analysis steeped in the autonomy and individual rights tradition of health care and research do ...

At a time when bioethical issues are at the top of public and political agendas, there is a renewed interest in representations of the embryo in various religious traditions. One of the major traditions that has contributed to Western representations of the embryo is the Jewish tradition. This tradition poses ...

In public health ethics, as in bioethics, utilitarian approaches usually prevail, followed by Kantian and communitarian foundations. If one considers the nature and core functions of public health, which are focused on a population perspective, utilitarianism seems still more applicable to public health ethics. Nevertheless, faulting additional protections towards the ...

The prevention of overweight sometimes raises complex ethical questions. Ethical public health frameworks may be helpful in evaluating programs or policy for overweight prevention. We give an overview of the purpose, form and contents of such public health frameworks and investigate to which extent they are useful for evaluating programs ...

Bioethicists disagree over methods, theories, decision-making guides, case analyses and public policies. Thirty years ago, the thinking of many scholars coalesced around a principlist approach to bioethics. That mid-level mode of moral reasoning is now one of many approaches to moral deliberation. Significant variation in contemporary approaches to the study ...

Neuroscience addresses questions that, if resolved, will reveal aspects of our individuality. Therefore neuroscientific knowledge is not solely constrained within laboratories, but readily captures the attention of the public at large. Ideas, concepts and images in neuroscience widely circulate in culture and are portrayed in literature, film, works of art, ...

As synthetic biology develops into a promising science and engineering field, we need to have clear ideas and priorities regarding its safety, security, ethical and public dialogue implications. Based on an extensive literature search, interviews with scientists, social scientists, a 4 week long public e-forum, and consultation with several stakeholders ...

Public health interventions usually operate at the level of groups rather than individuals, and cluster randomized controlled trials (RCTs) are one means of evaluating their effectiveness. Using examples from six such trials in Bangladesh, India, Malawi and Nepal, we discuss our experience of the ethical issues that arise in their ...

A recent discussion on cognitive enhancers has caused some controversy in the ethics and neuroscience fields by coming out in favour of making neuropharmaceuticals with enhancing properties available for general consumption. We highlight in this brief commentary why concerns regarding efficacy and safety, demands on resources, and public health are ...

The National Association of Social Workers (NASW) Code of Ethics identifies numerous ethical standards that describe the responsibilities for the social work profession to the broader society. Mentioned among these ethical standards is the responsibility for social workers to provide appropriate professional services in response to public emergencies. However, few ...

This paper defends a distinctly liberal approach to public health ethics and replies to possible objections. In particular, I look at a set of recent proposals aiming to revise and expand liberalism in light of public health's rationale and epidemiological findings. I argue that they fail to provide a sociologically ...

The coming decades will see exciting breakthroughs in the treatment of SUDs, such as further elucidation of the genetic mechanisms of addiction. Yet if the past is any guide to the future, each new discovery will bring with it new challenges to the core ethical obligations of honoring informed consent, ...

Bioethics is best viewed as both a second-order discipline and also part of public discourse. Since their goals differ, some bioethical activities are more usefully viewed as advancing public discourse than academic disciplines. For example, the "Universal Declaration on Bioethics and Human Rights" sponsored by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, ...

Public health emergencies, such as hurricanes and the constant threat of an influenza pandemic, present public health responders with many ethical issues and little time to think them through. We interviewed 13 responders in the Epidemiology Section of the North Carolina Division of Public Health to learn how they have ...

Many commentators today lament the politicization of bioethics, but some suggest distinguishing among different kinds of politicization. This essay pursues that idea with reference to three traditions of political thought: liberalism, communitarianism, and republicanism. After briefly discussing the concept of politicization itself, the essay examines how each of these political ...

A public health emergency, such as an influenza pandemic, will lead to shortages of mechanical ventilators, critical care beds, and other potentially life-saving treatments. Difficult decisions about who will and will not receive these scarce resources will have to be made. Existing recommendations reflect a narrow utilitarian perspective, in which ...

As policy makers struggle to develop regulatory oversight models for nanotechnologies, there are important lessons that can be drawn from previous attempts to govern other emerging technologies. Five such lessons are the following: (1) public confidence and trust in a technology and its regulatory oversight is probably the most important ...

BACKGROUND: Some public health measures restrict personal freedom more than others, and deciding what type of measure will be appropriate and effective has long been a problem for policy makers. Existing bioethical frameworks are often not well suited to address the problems of public health. METHODS: The Nuffield Council on ...

A review and discussion of Death, Dying and the Ending of Life, edited by Margaret P. Battin, Leslie P. Francis, and Bruce M. Landesman. Ashgate Publishing, 2007. The many philosophical ethical legal, and social aspects of death and the dying process remain deeply controversial despite substantial and continuous public discussion ...

A team-based Learning (TBL) tutor training workshop on research and publication ethics was offered to 8 faculty members and 3 staff at Hallym University in 2009. To investigate the effect of the workshop and any attitude changes, a questionnaire survey was performed after the 8-hr course. Questions in four categories-general ...

The problem addressed here is the observation that numerous people in academia attach differential value to publication category or format rather than publication contents alone. This can be formally visible in academic tenure procedures where the record of research regularly favours an imbalance of loosely called "original work" versus "other". ...

In medical literature, child maltreatment is considered as a public-health problem or an issue of harm to individuals, but less frequently as a violation of children's human rights. Public-health approaches emphasise monitoring, prevention, cost-effectiveness, and population strategies; protective approaches concentrate on the legal and professional response to cases of maltreatment. ...

We sought to ascertain the types of ethical challenges public health practitioners face in practice and to identify approaches used to resolve such challenges. We conducted 45 semistructured interviews with public health practitioners across a range of occupations (e.g., health officers, medical directors, sanitarians, nurses) at 13 health departments in ...

OBJECTIVE: To assess the role of ethical regulations in public health practice, and to review the need to exempt any public health activity from such ethical regulations. METHODS: Literature review of published papers regarding ethical regulations in public health practice. RESULTS: There is a current criticism of public health ethics ...

The American Board of Urology (ABU) has a very distinct mission that is often misunderstood by urologists in the community. In addition, there is an enormous number of acronyms associated with the ABU. In this paper, I will attempt to explain the workings of the ABU and to define and ...

The focus of this paper is public health law and ethics, and the analytic framework advanced in the report Public health: ethical issues by the Nuffield Council on Bioethics. The author criticises the perceived problems found with liberal models associated with Millian political philosophy and questions the Report's attempt to ...

Bioethical debate has been characterized from the beginning by the central importance placed on autonomy. This is because bioethics has, until now, been concerned with the relationship between doctor and patient in a clinical context or, alternatively, with the rights of individuals involved in biomedical research. The increased involvement of ...

In 1995, the Pedigree Standardization Task Force (PSTF) of the National Society of Genetic Counselors (NSGC) proposed a system of pedigree nomenclature. Recently, the PSTF (now called the Pedigree Standardization Work Group or PSWG) sought evidence that the published symbols met the needs of health professionals, were incorporated into health ...

The response to severe pandemic influenza will be managed by experts in public health and infectious disease and by government officials to whom the public will turn for information and direction. Nonetheless, there remain important ethical considerations that can shape what goals are given priority, how scarce resources are distributed, ...

Most scarcities that underpin health disparities within and among countries are not natural; rather, they result from policy choices and the operation of social institutions. Using examples from the United States of America: the Chicago heat wave and hurricane Katrina, this paper develops "denaturalizing scarcity" as a strategy for enquiry ...

While hormesis is an intriguing scientific hypothesis, this paper argues that it is not yet an acceptable basis for policy-making. Two reasons are given for this assessment. First, although hormesis has suggestive explanatory power, it does not yet have the predictive successes that indicate a general reliability sufficient for policy-making. ...

Scientific progress is a significant basis for change in public-health policy and practice, but the field also invests in value-laden concepts and responds daily to sociopolitical, cultural and evaluative concerns. The concepts that drive much of public-health practice are shaped by the collective and individual mores that define social systems. ...

First we give an overview of the historical development of public health. Then we present some public-health deontology codes and some ethical principles. We highlight difficulties in defining ethics for public health, with specific reference to three of them that concern: (i) the adaptability to public health of the classical ...