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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
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The 130th Annual Meeting of APHA |
James Cone, MD, MPH, Occupational Health Branch, California Department of Health Services, 1515 Clay St, Suite 1901, Oakland, CA 94612, 510-622-4319, jcone@dhs.ca.gov
Occupational disease outbreak investigations usually involve rapid, small-scale investigations of reports of diseases that have a suspected occupational etiology, usually in a single workplace or among workers of a single employer. Ethical issues that may be raised in the context of an occupational disease outbreak investigation include potential for conflict of interest, issues of informed consent, obligations to the study participants, ownership and access to the data, privacy, confidentiality, defining re-entry and cleanup criteria, publication of study results, worker notification and when a referral to an enforcement agency may be required. The point of view of workers should be included in the design of the investigation. The protections afforded planned occupational health studies are generally not available to researchers involved in outbreak investigations: Due to time constraints, outbreak investigations have been exempted from requirements for human subjects review by Institutional Review Boards and federal Certificates of Confidentiality are difficult to obtain. General ethical guidelines will be presented that may be adapted for outbreak investigations, including those developed by professional associations such as the American College of Epidemiology and the American Board of Industrial Hygiene. Results of a review of available ethical guidelines from individual state health departments will be presented. Examples of outbreak investigations where ethical issues arose will also be discussed. Inquiry is needed into the ethical issues of outbreak investigations and training is needed of occupational health practitioners in practical ethics.
Learning Objectives:
Keywords: Ethics, Outbreaks
Presenting author's disclosure statement:
I do not have any significant financial interest/arrangement or affiliation with any organization/institution whose products or services are being discussed in this session.