public health

User Guide for Public Health Professionals

The Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues (Bioethics Commission) has developed educational materials for use in traditional and nontraditional educational settings.

The purpose of this guide is to highlight the most relevant materials for public health educators to illustrate how they might be integrated into public health classes, seminars, and workshops. This list is not exhaustive; rather, it is meant to serve as a quick reference to some of the most relevant materials.

Classroom Discussion Guide on Ethics and Public Health Emergencies

This guide provides discussion questions and topics based on the Presidential Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues’ report, Ethics and Ebola: Public Health Planning and Response (Ethics and Ebola), to help instructors integrate ethics discussions into a high school or college science course.

The discussion guide presents two topics that explore ethical challenges for public health emergencies: 1) quarantine and isolation, and 2) clinical trials for vaccines and treatments. Relevant questions for classroom discussion are also provided.

Communicating During a Public Health Emergency

In Ethics and Ebola: Public Health Planning and Response, the Bioethics Commission emphasized the importance of effective public health communication and real-time integration of ethics expertise in public health emergencies, in addition to early planning. This case study illustrates how public health professionals consider and address ethics and public health communication as a major outbreak unfolds.

Download case study here.

Public Health Case Studies Introduction

Distinctive features of public health can heighten certain ethical considerations and generate ethical questions that differ from those in clinical medicine or research. The Bioethics Commission developed case studies based on its work that provide an educational opportunity to analyze scenarios similar to those that public health professionals might encounter.

Download case studies introduction here.

 

Additional public health case studies:

Ethical Use of Liberty-restricting Public Health Measures

In Ethics and Ebola: Public Health Planning and Response, the Bioethics Commission emphasized the importance of grounding  public health policies in the best available scientific evidence, and implementing measures that restrict individual or community  liberties only when they are required  to  protect  public  health. This case study illustrates how public health professionals consider the ethical components of restrictive measures as a major outbreak unfolds.

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This is a work of the U.S. Government and is not subject to copyright protection in the United States. Foreign copyrights may apply.