Ethics and Public Health Practitioners

The Ethics and Human Research Protection Program

The department is dedicated to the highest ethical and legal standards of the practice of public health and the protection of human subject research.
The Department is guided by the ethical principles in the Belmont Report (respect for persons, beneficence, justice) for reviews all research. The Belmont Report addressed public health practice as well as research.

• Respect for persons is the obligation to protect the personal dignity and autonomy of individuals and special protection of those persons with diminished autonomy by ensuring an appropriate process of consent, protections for privacy and confidentiality, and additional safeguards for the rights of vulnerable populations
• Beneficence is the obligation to secure the well-being of participants in research by maximizing benefits and ensuring risks to participants are minimized
• Justice involves substantive obligations such as ensuring fairness in the distribution of research benefits and burdens, and procedural obligations such ensuring consistency in applying standards, transparency of decision-making, and ensuring a meaningful process of public engagement

Most of the professional public health employees of the department are routinely engaged in public health practice, not human subject research. The distinctions between public health practice and human subject research are not always explicitly clear. DOH expects that public health officials conducting public health practice and quality improvement activities understand and apply their obligation to protect the rights and welfare of participants in these activities.

Ethics activities are designed to assist DOH officials in identify, analyzing and resolving ethical issues in public health and clinical practice. The program provides ethics consultations, education, and supports policy development concerning public health and clinical ethics. Program representatives participate in the Ethics Committee at A.G. Holley State Tuberculosis Hospital. A Public Health Ethics Workgroup is currently focused on ethical issues in emergency preparedness and response.

The program developed a web-based training module on ethical issues in pandemic influenza and other issues in emergency preparedness. The module, Ethical Training for Public Health Workforce in Responding to an Influenza Pandemic is now available. Training was developed as joint efforts of the Florida Department of Health, Medical College of Wisconsin, The Johns Hopkins University Berman Institute for Bioethics and the Johns Hopkins University Center for Public Health Preparedness.

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