Population - Term Used To Describe The Recipients of The Health Motion and Disease and Disability

TOPIC: PUBLIC HEALTH ETHICAL ISSUES
Public Health Nursing

– practice of promoting and protecting health of populations using knowledge from nursing, social and
public health sciences. (APHA, 2013)
– Evidence-based and focuses on promotion of health of entire populations and prevention of disease,
injury, and premature death (ANA)
Population – term used to describe the recipients of the health motion and disease and disability
prevention care
Community – group of persons who have a shared interest in a common good, and the various members of
the group have the potential to share in a collective dialogue about their common good.
Ethical Approaches to Public Health

 Kantian Ethics (Deontology)
- All rational persons are autonomous, ends in themselves, and worthy of dignity and respect.
 Utilitarianism (Consequentialism)
- Based on maximizing the good, happiness, or moral consequences of one’s decisions and
actions.
 Communitarian Ethics
- Derives from “communal values, the common good, social goals, traditional practices,
cooperative virtues”
Nurse’s Role
 Assessing health trends to identify health risk factors specific to communities
 Assigning priorities for health-related interventions in order to provide the greatest benefit
 Advocacy with local, state and federal authorities in improving the access to health services in under
served communities
 Design and implement health education campaigns and activities for disease prevention
 Provide information on local health programs and services that are available to improve access to care
 Providing direct health care services to at-risk populations
Environmental Concerns
 Environmental risk factors such as air, water and soil pollution, chemical exposures, climate
change, and ultraviolet radiation contribute to more than 100 diseases and injuries worldwide.
 In 2012, an estimated 12.6 million people died as a result of living or working in an unhealthy
environment, that’s nearly 1 in 4 global deaths.
 The Philippines is not spared from this burden with environmental risk factors contributing to at
least 22% of the reported disease cases and nearly 6% of reported deaths in 2006.
Nurse’s Role
Nurses may act as investigators by
 taking careful environmental health histories and looking for trends in exposure, illness, and
injury;
 being alert to environmental factors that influence health;
 working with interdisciplinary teams and with agencies to determine if an environmental
exposure is affecting the health of a community;
 initiating or engaging in research to identify and control environmental exposures that
adversely affect human health; and
 working with public and private institutions to perform risk and hazard assessments.
Role as Educator
 This type of education is commonly referred to by public agencies and environmental health
specialists as hazard or risk communication.
 Nurses can further develop this role by providing information to create environmentally safe
homes, schools, day-care settings, workplaces, and communities.
 As role models, nurses can conduct their practice and lives in an environmentally safe manner,
that is, by limiting unnecessary exposure to chemicals or by carrying out routine duties in a
manner that minimizes injury due to ergonomic hazards.
 Nurses can act as educators by speaking at community gatherings and becoming involved in
community-level activities related to the environment and human health.
 They may also participate in risk or hazard communication for public health agencies.
Communicable Diseases/Infectious Diseases

- Public health advances in the 20 th century dramatically decreased morbidity and mortality
form infectious diseases in the Unite States, and because of this progress, national health
officials began to lose interest in funding and promoting research directed at infectious
disease treatment and control (Centers for Disease Control [CHC], 2003)
- General public have begun to recognize the humanity’s fight against infectious diseases is
never ending (Markel, 2004)
Ethical Issues and HIV/AIDS

HIV Testing
- In the United States, the primary issue of ethical concern with regard to testing for HIV is
PRIVACY
- The ethics of testing are less problematic when testing is anonymous than is the case when
there is a greater risk of a person’s name and HIV status being associated.
Nurse’s Role
- In accepting their professional nursing role, nurses make a contract or covenant with the
public to provide certain services (Fry and Veatch, 2000)
- There are only a few situations in which nurses would ethically be permitted to refuse care to
individuals with HIV based on the patient being viewed as a danger to the nurse.
- Each health care institution should have policies that nurses can refer to for guidance in
determining when concerns about the risks of care are justified in allowing nurses to refuse to
provide care to these patients.
Terrorism and Disasters

 During disasters, public health professionals must make critical decisions about how to triage
scarce resources and everyday personal rights - health care, including first aid; food and
water; medications and immunizations, warmth and housing; protection from harmful
environmental elements.
 Because of the major impact that public health actions can have on human suffering and well-
being, the decision made by public health professionals during disasters are inherently ethical
in nature.
Ethical Approaches on Terrorism and Disasters

 Social Justice
- fair distribution of resources
 Communitarian ethics
- acting to facilitate the common good for communities
 Utilitarianism
- considering actions that produce the greatest good for the greatest number of people
 Virtue Ethics
- having good character and being concerned about the common good
Nurse’s Role
 provide quality health care for people regardless of their age, gender and type of disease or reason
for seeking medical attention.
 balance compassion with professionalism, while arranging appropriate care and identifying
symptoms and problems.
 continue to be key players in local and national level emergency response.
 take responsibilities on prevention, surveillance and response during disasters.
 Be prepared for future acts of terrorism and equipped to care for victims in their respective
nursing environments.
 have better plans for silent disasters that may evolve over time from natural or accidental event.
 equipped with confidence and knowledge
 respond timely to emergency situations and assure to open communication to patients, families
and other medical professionals in order to provide accurate medical therapeutic intervention.
 take action to diverse tasks with professionalism, efficiency and above all- caring.
DO NOT INCLUDE IN THE PPT PRESENTATION
https://www.healthcare-management-degree.net/faq/what-is-a-public-health-nurse-and-what-are-some-of-
their-areas-of-responsibility/
https://www.nap.edu/read/4986/chapter/5#46
http://www.wpro.who.int/philippines/mediacentre/features/tackling_environmental_health_challenges_Ph
ilippines/en/
https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/82f4/af57dc8e297274327e849431cb314fd4489d.pdf

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TOPIC: PUBLIC HEALTH ETHICAL ISSUES

Public Health Nursing

Ethical Approaches to Public Health

Communicable Diseases/Infectious Diseases

Ethical Issues and HIV/AIDS

Terrorism and Disasters

Ethical Approaches on Terrorism and Disasters

DO NOT INCLUDE IN THE PPT PRESENTATION

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