Obesity is a public health problem influenced by behavioral patterns that span an ecological spectrum of individual-level factors, social network factors and environmental factors. Both individual and environmental approaches necessarily include significant influences from social networks, but how and under what conditions social networks influence behavior change is often not clearly mapped out either in the obesity literature or in many intervention designs. In this paper, we provide an analysis of recent empirical work in obesity research that explicates social network (...) influences on eating behaviors. We argue that a relational rather than individualistic view of personhood should help us better understand the content and context of social network relations that inform health behavior choices. We introduce the concept of ‘identity-constitutive affiliations’ as the glue that binds these social relationships together. Finally, we outline the implications for public health ethics in the development of effective interventions to address overweight and obesity, leveraging the content and context of social network ties to reinforce healthy (or alter unhealthy) eating. More complex treatment of positive and negative behaviors stemming from social network connections should lead to more comprehensive theoretical models of health behavior change and more effective public health interventions. (shrink)

This dissertation explores the idea and ethics of vaccination for the sake of others. It conceptually distinguishes four different kinds of vaccination—self-protective, paternalistic, altruistic, and indirect—based on who receives the primary benefits of vaccination and who ultimately makes the vaccination decision. It describes the results of focus group studies that were conducted to investigate what people who might get vaccinated altruistically think of this idea. It also applies the different kinds of vaccination to ethical issues surrounding COVID-19, such as lockdown (...) measures, routine or mandatory vaccination of healthy children, and the ethical justification of restrictive measures for unvaccinated people. A more general philosophical account of vaccination ethics is ultimately developed, which is based not on moral duties, but on the moral reasons that people may have to get vaccinated for the sake of others. It is argued that such reasons may be stronger or weaker, depending on various factors related to the vaccines in question and the specific epidemiological circumstances. (shrink)

The potential for vaccines to prevent the spread of infectious diseases is crucial for vaccination policy and ethics. In this paper, I discuss recent evidence that the current COVID-19 vaccines have only a modest and short-lived effect on reducing SARS-CoV-2 transmission and argue that this has at least four important ethical implications. First, getting vaccinated against COVID-19 should be seen primarily as a self-protective choice for individuals. Second, moral condemnation of unvaccinated people for causing direct harm to others is unjustified. (...) Third, the case for a harm-based moral obligation to get vaccinated against COVID-19 is weak. Finally, and perhaps most significantly, coercive COVID-19 vaccination policies (e.g., measures that exclude unvaccinated people from society) cannot be directly justified by the harm principle. (shrink)

This article argues that governments in countries that currently permit intensive animal agriculture - especially but not exclusively high-income countries - are, in principle, morally justified in taking steps to restrict or even eliminate intensive animal agriculture to protect public health from the risk of zoonotic pandemics. Unlike many extant arguments for restricting, curtailing, or even eliminating intensive animal agriculture which focus on environmental harms, animal welfare, or the link between animal source food (ASF) consumption and noncommunicable disease, the argument (...) in this article appeals to the value of protecting populations from future global health emergencies and their broad social, economic, and health impacts, taking the SARS-CoV-2 virus as a particularly salient example. The article begins by identifying how intensive animal agriculture contributes to the outbreak (and risk of future outbreaks) of zoonotic diseases. Next, we explore three specific policy options: 1. Incentivizing plant-based and cell-based ASF alternatives through government subsidies; 2. Disincentivizing intensive ASF production through the adoption of a “zoonotic tax”; and 3. Eliminating intensive ASF production through a total ban. We argue that all three of these measures are permissible, although we remain agnostic as to whether these measures are obligatory. We argue for this conclusion on the grounds that each measure is justified by the same sorts of considerations that justify other widely accepted public health interventions, and each is compatible with a variety of theories of justice. We then address potential objections. Finally, we discuss how our novel argument relates to extant ethical arguments in favor or curtailing ASF production and consumption. (shrink)

The aim of this article is twofold. First is to demonstrate that most values that underpin public health policy are a source of reasonable disagreement amongst citizens to whom said policy applies....

Pro-life advocates commonly argue that fetuses have the moral status of persons, and an accompanying right to life, a view most pro-choice advocates deny. A difficulty for this pro-life position has been Judith Jarvis Thomson’s violinist analogy, in which she argues that even if the fetus is a person, abortion is often permissible because a pregnant woman is not obliged to continue to offer her body as life support. Here, we outline the moral theories underlying public health ethics, and examine (...) the COVID-19 pandemic as an example of public health considerations overriding individual rights. We argue that if fetuses are regarded as persons, then abortion is of such prevalence in society that it also constitutes a significant public health crisis. We show that on public health considerations, we are justified in overriding individual rights to bodily autonomy by prohibiting abortion. We conclude that in a society that values public health, abortion can only be tolerated if fetuses are not regarded as persons. (shrink)

Effectiveness is a key criterion in assessing the justification of antibiotic resistance interventions. Depending on an intervention’s effectiveness, burdens and costs will be more or less justified, which is especially important for large scale population-level interventions with high running costs and pronounced risks to individuals in terms of wellbeing, integrity and autonomy. In this paper, we assess the case of routine hospital screening for multi-drug-resistant Gram-negative bacteria (MDRGN) from this perspective. Utilizing a comparison to screening programs for Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus aureus (...) (MRSA) we argue that current screening programmes for MDRGN in low endemic settings should be reconsidered, as its effectiveness is in doubt, while general downsides to screening programs remain. To accomplish justifiable antibiotic stewardship, MDRGN screening should not be viewed as a separate measure, but rather as part of a comprehensive approach. The program should be redesigned to focus on those at risk of developing symptomatic infections with MDRGN rather than merely detecting those colonised. (shrink)

Governments around the world have faced the challenge of how to respond to the recent outbreak of a novel coronavirus disease. Some have reacted by greatly restricting the freedom of citizens, while others have opted for less drastic policies. In this paper, I draw a parallel with vaccination ethics to conceptualize two distinct approaches to COVID-19 that I call altruistic and lockdown. Given that the individual measures necessary to limit the spread of the virus can in principle be achieved voluntarily (...) as well as through enforcement, the question arises of how much freedom governments ought to give citizens to adopt the required measures. I argue that an altruistic approach is preferable on moral grounds: it preserves important citizen freedoms, avoids a number of potential injustices, and gives people a much-needed sense of meaning in precarious times. (shrink)

It is generally wrong to manipulate. One leading reason is because manipulation interferes with autonomy, in particular the component of autonomy called ‘independence’, that is, freedom from intentional control by others. Manipulative health promotion would therefore seem wrong. However, manipulative techniques could be used to counter-manipulation, for example, playing on male fears of impotence to counter ‘smoking is sexy’ advertisements. What difference does it make to the ethics of manipulation when it is counter-manipulation? This article distinguishes two powerful defences of (...) counter-manipulative health promotion: that the counter-manipulation would prevent manipulation occurring, leaving people unmanipulated; and that the counter-manipulation would make people healthier without being any more manipulated than they would otherwise be. The article explains how counter-manipulation might work and the limits to its scope. The upshot is that counter-manipulative health promotion could respect the independence people are owed in virtue of their autonomy. However, autonomy is not the only consideration, and the article discusses further potential problems. Counter-manipulative health promotion might be misapplied, it might undermine trust, it might infringe on some norms for role behaviour and it might encourage a regrettable social practice. These objections are likely to be decisive against the counter-manipulation in some but not all cases. (shrink)

One important ethical issue for health promotion and public health work is to determine what the goals for these practices should be. This paper will try to clarify what some of these goals are thought to be, and what they ought to be. It will specifically discuss two different approaches to health promotion, such as, behavior change and empowerment. The general aim of this paper is, thus, to compare the behavior-change approach and the empowerment approach, concerning their immediate goals or (...) aims, and to morally evaluate the strengths and weaknesses of these two goal models, in relation to the ultimate goal of health promotion. The investigation shows that the behavior-change approach has several moral problems. First of all, it is overly paternalistic and often disregards the individual’s or group’s own perception of what is important—something that also increases the risk of failed interventions. Furthermore, it risks leading to ‘victim blaming’ and stigmatization, and to increased inequalities in health, and it puts focus on the ‘wrong’ problems, i.e., behavior instead of the ‘causes of the causes’. It is thereafter shown that the empowerment approach does not have any of these problems. Finally, some specific problems for the empowerment approach are discussed and resolved, such as, the idea that empowering some groups might lead to power over others, the objection that the focus is not primarily on health, and the fact that empowered people might choose to live lives that risk reducing their health. (shrink)

The growing prevalence of obesity and related conditions such as Type II diabetes is held by many to be a major public health problem in developed countries, and increasingly in developing countries as well. If we wish to tackle this problem, it will be a major task. Individuals will have to change their consumption and exercise patterns, companies will have to improve the products they make and how they market them, nutrition experts and communities will have to redefine what is (...) acceptable and desirable in food practices and governments will have to lead and promote such societal-level changes in many different fields, including food policy, urban design, educational policies, agricultural subsidies and tax breaks, etc. This is all very difficult to achieve. In many people’s view, government action aiming at social change will be especially controversial and meet some resistance. New York …. (shrink)

This chapter concerns the normativity of the concepts of paternalism and libertarian paternalism. The first concept is central in evaluating public health policy, but its meaning is controversial. The second concept is equally controversial and has received much attention recently. It may or may not shape the future evaluation of public health policy. In order to facilitate honest and fruitful debate, I consider three approaches to these concepts, in terms of their normativity. Concepts, I claim, may be considered nonnormative, normatively (...) charged, or normative in that they involve more complex relationships between values or duties. While the last approach is often best, other approaches may be appropriate depending on the context and purpose of discussion. The chapter’s conceptual investigation is illustrated by application to two public health policies: a tax on the consumption of fat and the encouragement of health-promoting food displays in restaurants and supermarkets. (shrink)

There are several strategies to promote health in individuals and populations. Two general approaches to health promotion are behavior change and empowerment. The aim of this article is to present those two kinds of strategies, and show that the behavior-change approach has some moral problems, problems that the empowerment approach (on the whole) is better at handling. Two distinct ‘ideal types’ of these practices are presented and scrutinized. Behavior change interventions use various kinds of theories to target people’s behavior, which (...) they do through information, persuasion, coercion and manipulation. Empowerment is a collaborative method where those ‘facilitated’ participate in the change process. Some ethical problems with the behavior-change model are that it does not sufficiently respect the right to autonomy of the individuals involved and risks reducing their ability for autonomy, and that it risks increasing health inequalities. Empowerment, on the other hand, respects the participant’s right to autonomy, tends to increase the ability for autonomy, as well as increasing other coping skills, and is likely to reduce inequalities. A drawback with this approach is that it often takes longer to realize. (shrink)

‘Harm reduction’ programs are usually justified on the utilitarian grounds that they aim to reduce the net harms of a behavior. In this paper, I contend that the historical genesis of harm reduction programs, and the crucial moral imperative that distinguishes these programs from other interventions and policies, are not utilitarian; the practical implementation of harm reduction programs is not, and probably cannot be, utilitarian; and the continued justification of harm reduction on utilitarian grounds is untenable and may itself cause (...) harm. Promoting harm reduction programs as utilitarian in the public arena disregards their deeper prioritarian impulses. ‘Harm reduction’ is a misnomer, and the name should be abandoned sooner rather than later. (shrink)

The idea that the degree of infringement public health interventions have on individual rights should be proportional to the degree of expected benefits has emerged as an influential principle in public health ethics and policy. While proportionality makes sense in theory, it may be difficult to implement in practice, due to the inherent conflict between individual rights and the common good underlying the principle. To apply the proportionality principle to a decision of policy, one must still find a reasonable way (...) of balancing these competing values in light of the available options and empirical evidence. In this article, I consider how the proportionality principle applies to the regulation of dietary supplements and examine some critiques of the current oversight system. I argue that it may be difficult maintain proportional oversight because the risks of dietary supplements vary considerably. Strengthening the regulations may therefore promote an appropriate level of regulation in some cases but lead to overregulation in others. (shrink)

There is a growing trend in policy making of holding people responsible for their lifestyle-based diseases. This has sparked a heated debate on whether people are responsible for these illnesses, which has now come to an impasse. In this paper, I present a psychological model that explains why different views on people’s responsibility for their health exist and how we can reach a resolution of the disagreement. My conclusion is that policymakers should not perceive people as responsible while health care (...) personnel should take the opposing view. (shrink)

Indoor smoking bans in public places is usually held as a simple and straightforward example of the application of the harm principle in public health. However, implementing indoor smoking bans in mental health centres is difficult because of the potential neurological and social benefits of smoking for persons with schizophrenia, as suggested by some empirical studies. In this article, the ethical challenges related to smoking bans in mental health centres as justified by the harm principle are explored. Particular attention is (...) given to the case of R v. Nottinghamshire Healthcare NHS Trust . The article concludes by arguing that the possible benefits of smoking for persons with schizophrenia creates a rightful interest that cannot be ignored even if one applies the harm principle to protect others from the negative effects of second-hand smoke. Applying the harm principle in the case of smoking bans in mental health centres requires protecting the interest of persons with schizophrenia to smoke via the value of reciprocity. (shrink)

When exercising their public health powers, states claim various rights against their subjects and aliens. The paper considers whether public health considerations can help justify some of these rights, and explores some constraints on the justificatory force of public health considerations. I outline two arguments about the moral grounds for states’ rights with regard to public health. The principle of fairness emphasizes that those who benefit from public health measures ought to contribute their fair share in upholding them. Alternatively, states’ (...) rights might be justified by a natural duty of justice to uphold and not to obstruct institutions implementing public health policies. I indicate some reasons for preferring the latter justification. I further argue that the assignment of some rights to states via public health-based justification is undermined on several counts. Domestic political institutions cannot effectively perform some of their functions in protecting public health. Furthermore, transborder public health threats pose collective action problems at the global level. Finally, concerns about human rights work against the assignment of some rights to states. I conclude by arguing that these concerns call for global coordination, and that some rights claimed by states ought instead to be assigned to global institutions. (shrink)

Political communities across the world have recently sought to tackle rising rates of vaccine hesitancy and refusal, by implementing coercive immunization programs, or by making existing immunization programs more coercive. Many academics and advocates of public health have applauded these policy developments, and they have invoked ethical reasons for implementing or strengthening vaccine mandates. Others have criticized these policies on ethical grounds, for undermining liberty, and as symptoms of broader government overreach. But such arguments often obscure or abstract away from (...) the diverse values that are relevant to the ethical justifications of particular political communities’ vaccine‐mandate policies. We argue for an expansive conception of the normative issues relevant to deciding whether and how to establish or reform vaccine mandates, and we propose a schema by which to organize our thoughts about the ways in which different kinds of vaccine‐mandate policies implicate various values. (shrink)

The principle of respect for autonomy requires informing patients adequately and appropriately about diagnoses, treatments, and prognoses. However, some clinical cases may cause ethical dilemmas regarding telling the truth. Under the existence especially of certain cultural, social, and religious circumstances, disclosing all the relevant information to all pertinent parties might create harmful effects. Even though the virtue of telling the truth is unquestionable, sometimes de facto conditions compel physicians to act paternalistically to protect the patient/patients from imminent dangers. This article, (...) which aims to study the issue of whether a physician should always tell the truth, analyzes an interesting case that represents the detection of misattributed paternity during pre-transplant tests for a kidney transplant from the son to the father in Turkey, where social, cultural, and religious factors have considerable impact on marital infidelity. After analyzing the concept of telling the truth and its relationship with paternalism and two major ethical theories, consequentialism and deontology, it is concluded that the value of the integrity of life and survival overrides the value of telling the truth. For this reason, in the case of a high possibility of severe and imminent threats, withholding some information is ethically justifiable. (shrink)

Pre-natal-diagnosis technologies allow parents to discover whether their child is likely to suffer from serious disability. One argument for state funding of access to such technologies is that doing so would be “cost-effective”, in the sense that the expected financial costs of such a programme would be outweighed by expected “benefits”, stemming from the births of fewer children with serious disabilities. This argument is extremely controversial. This paper argues that the argument may not be as unacceptable as is often assumed. (...) In doing so, it sets out a more general framework for assessing the relevance of efficiency calculations to policy-making. The final section also investigates the relationship between the paper’s arguments and claims about parental responsibility for child-bearing and rearing, with reference to Scanlon’s work on “substantive responsibility”. (shrink)

Center for Humans and Nature, 109 West 77th Street, Suite 2, New York, NY 10024, USA. Tel.: 212 362 7170; Fax: 212 362 9592; Email: brucejennings{at}humansandnature.org ' + u + '@' + d + ' '//--> . Abstract A fundamental question for the ethical foundations of public health concerns the moral justification for limiting or overriding individual liberty. What might justify overriding the individual moral claim to non-interference or to self-realization? This paper argues that the libertarian justification for limiting individual (...) liberty known as the ‘harm principle’ or the ‘Millian paradigm’ is inadequate as a basis of public health ethics and policy. But simply pitting some collectivist value or utilitarian criterion over against individual liberty is not theoretically satisfactory, either. John Stuart Mill himself was not a Millian, in this sense, and his utilitarianism does not pit itself against individual liberty as a situation of balancing conflicting values. A reconsideration of Mill, particularly in light of the later work of Berlin on liberty, points toward a conception of relational liberty that is crucial for public health ethics because it contains within itself the basis for its own moral limitation. CiteULike Connotea Del.icio.us What's this? (shrink)

A wide range of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) have been introduced to stop or slow down the COVID-19 pandemic. Examples include school closures, environmental cleaning and disinfection, mask mandates, restrictions on freedom of assembly and lockdowns. These NPIs depend on coercion for their effectiveness, either directly or indirectly. A widely held view is that coercive policies need to be publicly justified—justified to each citizen—to be legitimate. Standardly, this is thought to entail that there is a scientific consensus on the factual propositions (...) that are used to support the policies. In this paper, we argue that such a consensus has been lacking on the factual propositions justifying most NPIs. Consequently, they would on the standard view be illegitimate. This is regrettable since there are good reasons for granting the state the legitimate authority to enact NPIs under conditions of uncertainty. The upshot of our argument is that it is impossible to have both the standard interpretation of the permissibility of empirical claims in public justification and an effective pandemic response. We provide an alternative view that allows the state sufficient room for action while precluding the possibility of it acting without empirical support. (shrink)

BackgroundSharing de-identified individual-level health research data is widely promoted and has many potential benefits. However there are also some potential harms, such as misuse of data and breach of participant confidentiality. One way to promote the benefits of sharing while ameliorating its potential harms is through the adoption of a managed access approach where data requests are channeled through a Data Access Committee (DAC), rather than making data openly available without restrictions. A DAC, whether a formal or informal group of (...) individuals, has the responsibility of reviewing and assessing data access requests. Many individual groups, consortiums, institutional and independent DACs have been established but there is currently no widely accepted framework for their organization and function.Main textWe propose that DACs, should have the role of both promotion of data sharing and protection of data subjects, their communities, data producers, their institutions and the scientific enterprise. We suggest that data access should be granted by DACs as long as the data reuse has potential social value and provided there is low risk of foreseeable harms. To promote data sharing and to motivate data producers, DACs should encourage secondary uses that are consistent with the interests of data producers and their own institutions. Given the suggested roles of DACs, there should be transparent, simple and clear application procedures for data access. The approach to review of applications should be proportionate to the potential risks involved. DACs should be established within institutional and legal frameworks with clear lines of accountability, terms of reference and membership. We suggest that DACs should not be modelled after research ethics committees (RECs) because their functions and goals of review are different from those of RECs. DAC reviews should be guided by the principles of public health ethics instead of research ethics.ConclusionsIn this paper we have suggested a framework under which DACs should operate, how they should be organised, and how to constitute them. (shrink)

Die epidemiologische Morbiditätsverschiebung der vergangenen Jahrzehnte hat verhaltensassoziierte Erkrankungen in das Zentrum der Public Health-Arbeit rücken lassen. Sowohl die Prävention Lebensstil-bedingter Erkrankungen als auch die Behandlung ihrer Folgen gehören angesichts steigender Morbiditäts- und Mortalitätszahlen zu den größten Herausforderungen für moderne Gesundheitssysteme. Eine Beeinflussung von Gesundheitsverhalten sowie dessen Berücksichtigung in der Mittelverteilung – prominent verhandelt in der medizinethischen Debatte um gesundheitliche Eigenverantwortung – sind jedoch kontrovers. Bisher konnte dafür noch kein allgemein akzeptiertes theoretisches Modell entwickelt werden. Im vorliegenden Beitrag wird der (...) in letzter Zeit im angloamerikanischen Raum intensiv im Public Health-Kontext verhandelte libertäre Paternalismus als ein solches Modell untersucht und einer kritischen Untersuchung zugeführt. Es wird geschlussfolgert, dass dieses Modell zwar argumentativ in wesentlicher Hinsicht unterbestimmt ist, jedoch viele willkommene und sinnvolle Impulse für die moderne Public Health-Politik liefern kann. (shrink)

The prevalence of chronic diseases has increased in recent decades. Some forms of the built environment adopted during the 20th century—e.g., urban sprawl, car dependency, and dysfunctional streetscapes—have contributed to this. In this article, I summarise ways in which the built environment influences health and how it can be constructed differently to promote health. I argue that urban planning is inevitably a social and political activity with many ethical dimensions, and I illustrate this with two examples: the construction of a (...) hypothetical new suburb and a current review of planning legislation in Australia. I conclude that (1) constructing the built environment in ways that promote health can be ethically justified, (2) urban planners and public health workers should become more skilled in the application of ethical considerations to practical problems, and (3) the public health workforce needs to become more competent at influencing the activities of other sectors. (shrink)

BackgroundFrance has long been a country of immigration and in some respects may be seen to have a generous policy with respect to asylum seekers and access to health care for migrants. The French state notably provides healthcare access for undocumented migrants, through state medical aid and since 1998 has had a humanitarian policy for granting temporary residence permits for medical reason (TRPMR) to migrants. Within a context of political debate, reform and tightening immigration control we will examine this latter (...) policy focusing especially on the dilemmas that arise for physicians of migrant patients when they are requested to write medical certificates as part of a TRPMR application. In a 2017 reform the key role of making recommendations on the granting or not of permits was handed over to Ministry of the Interior health inspectors. Recommendations are made after perusal of medical certificates established by the migrant’s physician and complementary evidence.Main bodyThe writing of medical certificates by a physician would seem straightforward. This is far from the case since it raises a number of ethical dilemmas. These occur within a physician-patient relationship embedded within a social contract between the State, the physician and the migrant patient. To clarify the ethical issues arising 3 vignettes based on practice within an infectious disease unit at a large Paris hospital have been developed. The vignettes highlight ethical dilemmas in the care for migrants with tuberculosis (dilemma in defining health and disease), chronic hepatitis (dilemma between beneficence and do not harm), and HIV / AIDS (issue of deservingness). We will go on to reflect on issues of social justice and responsibility for the health of migrants within a globalized world.ConclusionsCriteria for residence permit delivery appear less than clear-cut and are interpreted in a restrictive way. Neither are the consequences of refusing a residence permit taken into account. We call for an empirical transnational ethics study involving countries implementing similar TRPMR policies. We also call for inclusion of lobbying competences into the medical undergraduate curricula, in order to breed future generations of physicians skilled in defending social justice. (shrink)

Courts play a key role in deciding on public health controversies, but the legitimacy of judicial intervention remains highly controversial. In this article I suggest that we need to carefully distinguish between different reasons for persistent disagreement in the domain of public health. Adjudicating between public health controversies rooted in factual disagreements allows us to investigate more closely the epistemic capacities of the judicial process. While the critics typically point out the lack of appropriate expertise of judges—in particular with respect (...) to health and public health—we should not move too fast in inferring from this a generalized competence problem. This article offers four reasons for vindicating the importance of judicial intervention in factual disagreements: the relative independence of judges from the political establishment, the judicial commitment to evidence, the specific nature of judicial reasoning and an additional voice for the people in the policy-making process. (shrink)

Health communication researchers and practitioners continue to debate about the types of influence that are appropriate in health promotion. A widely held assumption is that health campaigns and communicators should respect the autonomy of their audiences, and that the most appropriate way to do so is to persuade them by means of truthful substantive information. This approach to ethical persuasion, though, suffers from certain blind spots. To account for circumstances when respecting autonomy might take a back seat to other ethical (...) considerations, a comprehensive framework for the ethics of health communication needs to acknowledge types of communication that aim to do something other than provide substantive information (disclosive and directive communication), and subjective circumstances when people are not motivated to process information or make active choices (low processing motivation and decision aversion). (shrink)

This paper starts by introducing a tripartite conception of responsibility for health consisting of a moral agent having moral responsibilities and being held responsible, that is blamed, for failing to meet them and proceeds to a brief discussion of the nature of the blame, noting difficulties in agency and obligation when the concept is applied to health‐threatening behaviours. Insights about the obligations that we hold people to and the extent of their moral agency are revealed by interrogating our blaming behavior, (...) and to facilitate this, my own blaming attitudes and actions are analysed in respect of an imagined adult son who seeks thrills by jumping from a pier into the sea, an activity common around coastlines and intended to be analogous in varying degrees to a range of health‐threatening behaviours. I consider my responses to this imagined act in relation to some features of moralism, the excess of morality, concluding that blame can be justified when it is proportionate and within interpersonal relationships. There is evidence that some nurses hold negative blaming attitudes towards groups of patients considered to have caused or contributed to their illness, but this is not justified, not only because of impaired agency, but also because if there is responsibility for health, associated obligations are owed to those who share our lives, and it is those people who are entitled to hold individuals responsible. Nurses who hold negative blaming attitudes towards groups of patients are invited to identify the status of moral agency, the precise natures of their (failed) obligations, and of the patient–nurse relationship. It is concluded that reflection on these matters and the difference between justified blame and moralism demonstrates that blaming behaviour in the context of professional health care is built on nothing stronger than prejudice. (shrink)

Some societies tolerate or encourage high levels of chickenpox infection among children to reduce rates of shingles among older adults. This tradeoff is unethical. The varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes both chickenpox and shingles. After people recover from chickenpox, VZV remains in their nerve cells. If their immune systems become unable to suppress the virus, they develop shingles. According to the Exogenous Boosting Hypothesis (EBH), a person’s ability to keep VZV suppressed can be ‘boosted’ through exposure to active chickenpox infections. (...) We argue that even if this hypothesis were true, immunization policies that discourage routine childhood varicella vaccination in order to prevent shingles for other people are unethical. Such policies harm children and treat them as mere means for the benefit of others, and are inconsistent with how parents should treat their children and physicians should treat their patients. These policies also seem incompatible with institutional transparency. (shrink)

It appears that there are two distinct practices within public health, namely health promotion and disease prevention, leading to different goals. But does the distinction hold? Can we promote health without preventing disease, and vice versa? The aim of the paper is to answer these questions. First, the central concepts are defined and the logical relations between them are spelt out. A preliminary conclusion is that there is a logical difference between health and disease, which makes health promotion and disease (...) prevention two distinct endeavours. However, since disease is defined in relation to health, as those kinds of internal processes and states that typically lead to ill health, the difference is smaller than it might appear. Second, in order to answer the practical question whether it is possible to promote health without preventing disease, and vice versa, several kinds of public health interventions are discussed. The conclusion is that while health promotion and disease prevention can be distinguished conceptually, they can hardly be distinguished in practice. Most general measures do both at the same time. (shrink)

The terms “health promotion” and “disease prevention” refer to professional activities. But a “health promoter” has also come to denote a profession, with an alternative agenda compared to that of traditional public health work, work that by some is seen to be too medically oriented, too reliant upon prevention, risk-elimination and health-care. But is there really a sharp distinction between these activities and professions? The main aim of the paper is to investigate if these concepts are logically different, or if (...) they are just two extremes of one dimension. The central concepts, health promotion and disease prevention, are defined, and it is concluded that health promotion and disease prevention are logically distinct concepts, although they are conceptually related through a causal connection. Thus, logically, it is possible to promote health without preventing disease, even if this is not so common, in practice, but it is not possible to prevent disease without promoting health. Finally, most health promoting interventions target basic health, not manifest health, and often also thereby reduce future disease. (shrink)

This article presents a critique of the health promotion policy of Japan, which is based on an examination of the social importance of and justification for health promotion. This is done to suggest the proper direction that the future Japanese policy could take, and to question the adequacy of the term of ‘health promotion’. We find the ‘social progress’ characterization of the ‘Second Term of National Health Promotion Movement in the Twenty-First Century - Health Japan 21 ’ to be problematic. (...) While there are clear restraints found in terms of social costs related to the policy, the aims toward social justice provided by the policy are not clear. Considering the social importance and justification of health promotion, and the present conditions seen in Japan, we believe that it is necessary clearly to position health promotion as a form of social justice. Having said this, the term ‘health promotion’ is in itself misleading and can belie the range of activities required to action these policies. Therefore, we propose considering the selection of a different and more appropriate term for health promotion that concretely defines policies that actively work toward definitive health equity. (shrink)

Evaluating public health measures is one of the central tasks in public health ethics. Some public health measures incur the charge that they are paternalistic in an objectionable way. In a recent intriguing contribution to this journal, Thomas Nys responds to this complaint by setting out three challenges to be met if the charge is to be made good. The first challenge is that putatively objectionable public health measures in fact preserve autonomy; the second is that autonomy is not undermined (...) by measures that are the upshot of democratic processes; the third is that it is a mistake to charge measures intended to benefit others with being objectionably paternalistic. Nys's explicit aim in presenting these challenges is not to show that the charge of paternalism in public health is never sound, but to stimulate further discussion. My paper takes up this invitation by responding to each of the challenges Nys presents, including discussing where they fail and identifying which succeed. (shrink)

Using tombstoning (jumping from a height into water) as an example, this article claims that public health policies and health promotion tend to assess the moral status of activities following a version of health maximizing rule utilitarianism, but this does not represent common moral experience, not least because it fails to take into account the enjoyment that various health effecting habits brings and the contribution that this makes to a good life, variously defined. It is proposed that the moral status (...) of health threatening activities should instead be defined by a version of act utilitarianism where both maximizing value and method of calculation are decided by individuals. In this account personal responsibility for health is reduced to the obligation to undertake calculations effectively, comprising of two duties; epistemic and reflective. If there is an individual epistemic duty, it is plausible to suggest that health promotion should present information in a way which facilitates it, but despite the prevalent language of autonomous choice, discussion of health promotion messages, for example, related to drinking and smoking demonstrates that this currently does not happen. Health promotion strategies should seek to encourage reflection about the harm our health effecting behaviour causes others. (shrink)

The field of health promotions faces considerable ethical and programmatic challenge – and we believe opportunity – in addressing the relative normativity of the concept(s) of health and its professional handling. To date, distinctions of objective and subjective indicants of “health” have fostered normative tension(s) within the utilitarian ethics of health promotions, which we opine to be anathema to the ultimate goal(s) of attaining and sustaining healthy individuals and societies. Objective and subjective metrics and values should be reconciled, as reciprocal (...) and complementary on both idiosyncratic and systemic levels. In this light, we propose that a philosophical and ethical approach, based primarily upon Schmitz’s New Phenomenology and its specific understanding of subjectivity could afford epistemological bases for non-normative engagement of health promotion within a structural–functional framework of ethics. We dialectically address its potential benefit, limitations and value for health promotion and health care ethics and present an approach which points towards a more substantial encouragement of diversity through the legitimation of subjectivity. (shrink)

Digital epidemiology, also referred to as digital disease detection, successfully provided methods and strategies for using information technology to support infectious disease monitoring and surveillance or understand attitudes and concerns about infectious diseases. However, Internet-based research and social media usage in epidemiology and healthcare pose new technical, functional and formal challenges. The focus of this paper is on the ethical issues to be considered when integrating digital epidemiology with existing practices. Taking existing ethical guidelines and the results from the EU (...) project M-Eco and SORMAS as starting point, we develop an ethical assessment model aiming at providing support in identifying relevant ethical concerns in future DDD projects. The assessment model has four dimensions: user, application area, data source and methodology. The model supports in becoming aware, identifying and describing the ethical dimensions of DDD technology or use case and in identifying the ethical issues on the technology use from different perspectives. It can be applied in an interdisciplinary meeting to collect different viewpoints on a DDD system even before the implementation starts and aims at triggering discussions and finding solutions for risks that might not be acceptable even in the development phase. From the answers, ethical issues concerning confidence, privacy, data and patient security or justice may be judged and weighted. (shrink)