Introduction

Ethics discernment and skills are needed by public health professionals, whose decisions have moral implications. The main ethical dilemma that public health professionals have to face is balancing social good with personal liberty. However, ethical topics are often scarce in public health curricula in Europe and are not taught in a systematic way. Hence, public health ethics education is needed to provide practical guidance for public health professionals.

Objectives

a. Improve public health professionals’ knowledge, sensitivity and discernment of ethical issues. b. Foster a debate on public health ethics, stimulating the interest in the topic among public health professionals. c. Favour a tendency towards ethical reasoning regarding public health actions. d. Develop a European Model Curriculum on Public Health Ethics. e. Provide European schools of public health with learning supporting materials and resources on public health ethics for public health professionals.

Recent activity

a. Workshop on “Public Health Ethics” at the Spanish National School of Public Health. Madrid (Spain), 17 september 2013. b. Lunch Session on “Ethical issues on Public Health” at the 5th Annual European Public Health Conference. Malta, november 2012. c. Drafted the Outline of the European Model Curriculum on Public Health Ethics. d. Drafted a Case Study on “Mandatory Vaccination in a Measles Outbreak” to be published in the CDC Casebook on “Global Perspectives on Public Health Ethics”.

Recent publications

1. Royo-Bordonada MÁ, Díez-Cornell M, and Llorente JM. Health-care access for migrants in Europe: the case of Spain. The Lancet. 2013;382:393-4. 2. Schröder-Bäck P, Stjernberg L, Borg AM. Values and ethics amidst the economic crisis. Eur J Public Health. 2013 Jul 12. [Epub ahead of print]. 3. Aceijas C, Brall C, Schröder-Bäck P, Otok R, Maeckelberghe E, Stjernberg L, Strech D, Tulchinsky TH. Teaching ethics in schools of public health in the European Region: findings from a screening survey. Public Health Reviews. 2012;34: epub ahead of print. 4. Tulchinsky TH, Birt CA, Kalediene R, Meijer A. ASPHER’s values, vision, mission and aims: a working paper. ASPHER: December 2007.

Agenda 2014-2015

a. Organize a workshop on obesity prevention policies and ethics. b. Develop a short course on public health ethics for public health professors (training the trainers). c. Write down and implement the first part (Introductory and methodological issues) of the European Model Curriculum on Public Health Ethics.

Agenda 2020

Write down and full implementation of the European Model Curriculum on Public Health Ethics, including learning supporting materials and resources on public health ethics available online.