Online Program

Oral

“Understanding the ethical dimensions of policies and decisions is important for the provision of effective public health and public health management. Defining and addressing ethical issues should be handled through an explicit, rigorous, and standard manner that uses critical reasoning. ” This statement by the Public Health Accreditation Board in the most recent iteration of its Standards and Measures (Version 1.5) provides the rationale for a new measure that requires health departments to document their capacity to identify, analyze, and resolve ethical issues as part of the accreditation process. The proposed panel will discuss the importance of building infrastructure in public health ethics and the benefits it will bring to health departments (beyond meeting the requirements for accreditation), explore how LHDs can build such infrastructure, and examine ways to assess the impact of those efforts. Since 2010, the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) has partnered with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public Health Ethics Unit to work towards building infrastructure in public health ethics at local health departments (LHDs). This collaboration has resulted in the development of an online training, a training manual, and case studies in public health ethics. It has also led to the development of recommendations on ways to build infrastructure and sustain public health ethics activities. After detailing these collaborative activities, we will discuss the efforts initiated by CDC to develop strategies to measure and assess the impact of public health ethics activities. Finally, a LHD official from Clark County, Washington will provide practical examples based on his experience of how health officials can implement an ethics committee and integrate it into practice. Sufficient time will be allowed for audience input. This will include inviting audience members to share their experiences with addressing ethics infrastructure in their health departments. In addition, the moderator of the panel, Umair A. Shah, MD, MPH, Director for Harris County (TX) Public Health & Environmental Services, recently established an ethics committee and will be able to provide input on his experiences during the question and answer session.

CE Credits: Medical (CME), Health Education (CHES), Nursing (CNE), Public Health (CPH)