Mission:
The APHA Ethics Section champions the health of all people and all communities. We strengthen the profession of public health by sharing the latest research and information, promoting best practices, and advocating for the explicit integration of ethics in all public health activities and policies. We believe public health action should be grounded in the highest evidentiary and ethical standards.
History:
We have a perspective informed by years of dedication to the ethical foundations of public health. Starting as the Bioethics Forum in the 1980s, we fostered dialogue as one of APHA’s Special Primary Interest Group for over a decade. In 2014, the Ethics Section’s began its first year as a fully fledged APHA Section. We have seized the opportunity to sustain engagement with long-standing members while simultaneously reaching out to all APHA members, public health students and practicing professionals to highlight the ethical dimensions of their experiences in public health.
Objectives:
Together, we strengthen the profession by:
- Catalyzing discourse – We encourage public health ethics discourse by engaging professionals in all public health disciplines and making transparent the ethical foundations of our work.
- Heightening awareness and understanding – We heighten awareness and understanding of ethics in all aspects of public health research, policy and practice.
- Serving as a resource – We serve as a resource for APHA, for the larger public health community, for public and private decision-makers and for the general public to promote increased understanding of complex ethical considerations that confront us all.
Our Section's members have wide-ranging research interests, but are all dedicated to the advancement of ethics in public health.
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