Establishing and Revising a Code of Ethics for Public Health Professionals: Questions to be Addressed

Public health ethics remains a broad area of increasing interest over decades as the field of public health practice has incrementally acknowledged its explicit importance and relevance. Surveys have assessed and reported a range of ethically-based attitudes and practices held by public health professionals. Public health ethicists have promoted APHA to promulgate an ethics code considerably before the Pubic Health Leadership Society formulated the first formal "Code of Ethics for Public Health." This Code was adopted subsequently by APHA (though it had not formally been a part of its creation). As the Code appeared to be oriented to public health organizations versus individual public health professionals, within a few years, Wynia and Hiller created an "Ethics Oath" designed for individual public health professionals to be bound upon their entry into practice upon receiving their public health degree. Overlapping these activities, a rather small group of ethicists formed what was known as APHA's "Special Interest Group (SPIG) on Ethics that allowed APHA members holding a primary interest in ethics to plan and engage in a small number of scientific sessions on topics of common interest at the Association's annual meetings. However, even the SPIG opted not to become fully engaged in Association policies. As the SPIG recently gained full "Section" status, it is now posited to become more engaged in a wider, more significant manner in APHA affairs.

While a core tenet of established professions is having an established code of ethics, the authors seek to identify and explore the major obstacles that have contributed to why the public health “profession” continues to face ongoing difficulty in this endeavor. Additionally, the authors posit critical elements that ought to be considered in developing, or revising, a universally accepted, useful and meaningful revised code of ethics for public health. Their findings provide a template for advancing deliberations given the critical role of ethics in public health decision-making.