Bioethics - Public Health - Oxford Bibliographies

Public health has made enormous contributions to global health through policies and interventions. However, public health measures have also increased human suffering through policies of forced sterilization, mandatory screening of vulnerable populations, detention of people with infectious diseases, and the quarantine and social isolation of “sick” people or communities. Until recently, the values and ethics that public health is based on have been assumed to be “good” and have not been subject to critical analysis. In the last decade, however, bioethics has shifted its attention from the clinic to the public sphere, and many of the ethical issues raised by public health have become the focus of both philosophical and empirical study. Bioethics in public health addresses the tension between local and global health needs; the role of the community in decision making; the duties, obligations, and limitations of the state in relation to the provision of health care; the targeting of vulnerable populations by interventions aimed at preventing disease; and the nature and importance of ethical principles and rights in health care. This bibliography provides a collection of resources that address the ethical theories, theoretical frameworks, key concepts, and practices of public health.