Public Health Ethics: Theory, Policy, and Practice

by Ronald Bayer (Editor), Lawrence O. Gostin (Editor), Bruce Jennings (Editor), Bonnie Steinbock (Editor)

Overview

Since public health seeks to protect the health of populations, it inevitably confronts a range of ethical challenges having to do primarily with the friction between individual freedoms and what might be perceived as governmental paternalism. This volume brings together twenty-five articles by leading thinkers in the field, writing on topics that concern both classic and novel problems. They open up new terrain in each area, including tobacco and drug control, infectious disease, environmental and occupational health, the effect of new genetics on the publics health, and the impact of social inequalities on patterns of morbidity and mortality. The volume editors offer a context for discussion with introductory essays for each of the books five sections.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780190292683
Publisher:	Oxford University Press
Publication date:	11/09/2006
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	1 MB

About the Author

Columbia University

Johns Hopkins University

Center for Humans and Nature

State University of New York, Albany

Table of Contents

Part I: The Public Health Perspective. Introduction. Geoffrey Rose, Sick Individuals and Sick Populations, International Journal of Epidemiology 14(1): March 1985, 32-38. Dan Beauchamp, Community: The Neglected Tradition of Public Health, Hastings Center Report 15(6): December 1985, 28-36. Lawrence O. Gostin, Jo Ivey Boufford, Rose Marie Martinez, The Future of The Publics Health: Vision, Values, And Strategies, Health Affairs 23(4): July/August 2004, 96-107. Mark A. Rothstein, Rethinking the Meaning of Public Health, Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics 30(2): Summer 2002,144-149. Part II: Autonomy and Paternalism. Introduction. Daniel Wikler, Who Should Be Blamed for Being Sick? Health Education Quarterly 14(1): Spring 1987, 11-25. Ronald Bayer and Jonathan D. Moreno, Health Promotion: Ethical and Social Dilemmas of Governmental Policy, Health Affairs 15(2): Summer 1986, 72-85. Robert E. Goodin, No Smoking (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989), excerpts from Chapters 1 and 2. Jacob Sullum, For Your Own Good: The Anti-Smoking Crusade and the Tyranny of Public Health (New York: The Free Press, 1998), excerpts from chapters 4, 5, 8. Ethan A. Nadelmann, Drug Prohibition in the United States: Costs, Consequences and Alternatives, Science 245(4921): September 1 1989, 939-947. James Q. Wilson, Against the Legalization of Drugs, Commentary 89(2): February 1990, 21-28. Part III: Justice and Health. Introduction. Angus Deaton, Policy Implications of the Gradient of Health and Wealth, Health Affairs 21(2): March/April 2002; 13-30. Richard G. Wilkinson, Putting the Picture Together: Prosperity, Redistribution, Health, and Welfare, in Michael Marmot and Richard G. Wilkinson, eds., Social Determinants of Health, (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), pp. 256-274. Norman Daniels, Bruce P. Kennedy, and Ichiro Kawachi, Why Justice is Good for Our Health: The Social Determinants of Health Inequalities, Daedalus 128(4): Fall 1999, 215-251. Bruce Jennings, "Health Policy in a New Key: Setting Democratic Priorities," Journal of Social Issues, 49(2): 1993, 169-184. Part IV. Infectious Disease: Coercion and the Protection of Society. Introduction. Ronald Bayer and Amy L. Fairchild, Surveillance and Privacy, Science 290(5498): December 8 2000, 1898-1899. Lawrence O. Gostin, Ronald Bayer, and Amy L. Fairchild, Ethical and Legal Issues Posed by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, Journal of the American Medical Association 290(24): December 24/31 2003, 3229-3237. Douglas S. Diekema and Edgar K. Marcuse, Ethical Issues in the Vaccination of Children, in G.R. Burgio and J.D. Lantos, eds., Primum Non Nocere Today Second Edition (Elsevier, 1998) pp. 37-47. Ronald Bayer and James Colgrove, Rights and Dangers: Bioterrorism and the Ideologies of Public Health, in Jonathan D. Moreno, ed., In the Wake of Terror: Medicine and Morality in a Time of Crisis (Cambridge: MIT Press, 2003) pp. 51-74. Part V. Regulation, Environmental and Occupational Health. Introduction. Carl F. Cranor, Regulating Toxic Substances: A Philosophy of Science and the Law (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993), pp. 44-48 (excerpts). Carolyn Raffensperger and Joel Tickner, To Foresee and To Forestall, Protecting Public Health and the Environment (Washington, D.C.: Island Press, 1999), pp. 1-11. Norman Daniels, Doth OSHA Protect Too Much? Just Health Care (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1985), Chapter 7(excerpts). Part VI. Genetics and Public Health. Introduction. Scott Burris and Lawrence O. Gostin, Genetic Screening from a Public Health Perspective: Three Ethical Principles, in Justine Burley and John Harris, eds., A Companion to Genethics (Malden, Massachusetts, Blackwell Publishers: 2002), pp. 455-464. Richard R. Sharp and J. Carl Barrett, The Environmental Genome Project: Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications, Environmental Health Perspectives 108(4): April 2000, 279-281. Ellen Wright Clayton, The Complex Relationship of Genetics, Groups, and Health: What It Means for Public Health, Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics, 30(2): Summer 2002, 290-297. Pamela Sankar, Mildred K. Cho, Celeste M. Condit, Linda M. Hunt, Barbara Koenig, Patricia Marshall, Sandra Soo-Jin Lee, and Paul Spicer, Genetic Research and Health Disparities, Journal of the American Medical Association, 291(24): June 23/30 2004.

Editorial Reviews

Reviewer: Griffin Trotter, MD, PhD (Saint Louis University)
Description: This edited book draws together essays on core topics in public health ethics.
Purpose: It seeks to provide an introduction to theories of public health ethics, and to provide helpful introductory essays on a number of central issues. Though these objectives are worthwhile, the current paucity of scholarship in public health ethics hampers the depth and completeness of the treatment of some topics.
Audience: The book is written for anyone with a scholarly or professional interest in public health ethics. It should be helpful for public health students, policy makers, bioethicists, and others with an interest in public health practices. The editors are well qualified, and many of the essays are written by well known scholars.
Features: The book is divided topically into sections, with each section containing essays that address the topic from a variety of perspectives. General topics include the overall perspective of public health, the tension between autonomy and paternalism, justice and health, coercion in the response to infectious disease, environmental and occupational health, and genetics. Many of the essays investigate particular issues within a general topic area (for instance, there are two essays about tobacco in the section on autonomy and paternalism). These more focused essays provide helpful illustrations of issues examined in the more general essays. For the most part, the focused, practical essays seem more helpful than the general, theoretical ones, as many of the theoretical discussions are truncated, occasionally to the point of being misleading (for instance, the comments about libertarianism on page 20 and about utilitarianism on page 22).
Assessment: This is a useful addition to previously available anthologies on public health ethics such as New Ethics for the Public's Health, Beauchamp and Steinbock (Oxford University Press, 1999), and Promoting Healthy Behavior; How Much Freedom? Whose Responsibility?, Callahan (Georgetown University Press, 2000). None of these anthologies clearly is better than the others, and each exhibits theoretical weaknesses such as the failure to adequately address the multitude of competing concepts of justice.

Doody's Review Service

"The book is written for anyone with a scholarly or professional interest in public health ethics...The editors are well qualified, and many of the essays are written by well known scholars."—⸫dy's

"This book includes thoughtful articles on public health responsibilities and limitations with respect to curtailing tobacco use and general health promotion...If health care reform is to be effective, howver, it is best to discuss the ethical side of public health openly, honestly, and with a degree of sophistication. This book is a good place to begin."—Inquiry

"This anthology provides an engaging overview of the emerging field of public health ethics...The book is likely to be a useful adjunct to courses on public health theory and practice, health policy, public health ethics, and health equity."—American Journal of Epidemiology

"The editors use a diverse scope of topics to infuse an encyclopedic breadth yet enjoyable read that sets a new standard for comprehensiveness on the subject. The many expert contributors adhere to a uniform template which brings together the collective experiences of those actively engaged in both research and clinical area covered, providing remarkable insight into the ethical dimensions of public health."—International Journal of Epidemiology

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