Public Health Ethics Training Materials

Good Decision Making in Real Time: Public Health Ethics Training for Local Health Departments

As part of CDC’s ongoing efforts to support state and local health departments, the Public Health Ethics Unit has developed a training manual to be used as a tool to strengthen public health ethics capacity at the local level. The manual includes an introduction to public health ethics, relevant case studies, suggestions for integrating ethics into health departments, and additional resources. The Student version of the manual may be downloaded here; the Facilitator version is available upon request.

Download the Student Manual
To request a copy of the Facilitator Manual, please email phethics@cdc.gov.

Public Health Ethics Case Repository

Below are additional public health ethics cases that can be used in conjunction with the training manual – Good Decision Making in Real Time: Public Health Ethics Training for Local Health Departments:

• Emergency Preparedness: Impact of Regulatory Compliance and Resource Allocation Decisions on Laboratory Capacity
• Ensuring Biosafety/Biosecurity during a Public Health Emergency
• Short-course Zidovudine Compared to What? A Trial to Prevent Mother-to-Infant HIV Transmission
• Unsafe Injections: Duty to Warn?
• Use of Restraint and Physical Force by First Responders: Duty to Investigate and Educate?
• Ethical Considerations for Allocating Medical Countermeasures in an Anthrax Incident
• Policies for Restricting Use of Electronic Nicotine Delivery Systems (ENDS) in Indoor Public Spaces

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Public Health Ethics Casebook

Public Health Ethics: Cases Spanning the Globe (2016). DH Barrett, LW Ortmann, A Dawson, C Saenz, A Reis, G Bolan (Eds.). Springer Open.

This open access book includes 40 cases that highlight a broad range of ethical issues and dilemmas that arise in the practice of public health. The casebook begins with an introduction to the basic concepts of public health ethics and describes important events that shaped the practice of public health. The cases are organized into chapters that discuss the following topics:

• Resource allocation and priority setting
• Disease prevention and control
• Chronic disease prevention and health promotion
• Environmental and occupational public health
• Vulnerability and marginalized populations
• International collaboration for global public health
• Public health research

You can access this book free of charge at http://link.springer.com/book/10.1007/978-3-319-23847-0.

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Additional Training Options

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) announce the availability of a Web-on-Demand e-Learning module, Good Decision Making in Real Time: Practical Public Health Ethics for Local Health Officials

Good Decision Making in Real Time: Practical Public Health Ethics for Local Health Officials

Program Description:

Public health officials regularly balance competing ethical and professional obligations (e.g., efficiently but fairly allocating scarce resources, respecting individual rights while safeguarding the public’s health, protecting underserved and marginalized communities while engaging and sharing information in a transparent manner, and ensuring data confidentiality and individual privacy while conducting surveillance). The field of public health ethics provides a theoretical basis and practical frameworks for addressing challenges that commonly arise in public health practice. Because of the ethical challenges that public health officials face, there is an increasing need to demonstrate competence in public health ethics and an interest in public health ethics training. In order to address this need, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the National Association of County and City Health Officials (NACCHO) developed a Web-on-Demand e-Learning module, Good Decision Making in Real Time: Practical Public Health Ethics for Local Health Officials. This training will provide public health professionals with tools and practical examples to address ethical challenges that commonly arise in the practice of public health. The 1 hour 54 minute training presents the basics of public health ethics; examines the complementary role that ethics and law play in decision making; and reviews strategies for analyzing ethical issues, exploring the ethical dimensions of alternative courses of action, and justifying public health decisions. The training also presents an interactive case study that puts the learner in the role of a health official and walks through the steps of an ethical analysis using a real-life case scenario. This interactive case study will illustrate how to use ethics frameworks, such as the Principles of the Ethical Practice of Public Health, developed by the Public Health Leadership Society, in the decision making process.

Objectives:

At the conclusion of the course, the participant will be able to:

1. Define the field of public health ethics.
2. Describe how to use ethical frameworks.
3. Describe a common public health ethics challenge.
4. Describe the process of case analysis.
5. State how public health ethics and law can work together to address ethical challenges and impact decision making.
6. Describe tools for helping public health officials make ethically informed choices, including illustrating the value of the case study approach.
7. List specific ways to integrate ethical considerations in the day-to-day decision-making in public health departments.
8. Promote health improvement, wellness, and disease prevention in cooperation with patients, communities, at-risk populations, and other members of an inter-professional team of health care providers.

Contact Information:

Public Health Ethics Unit, Office of Scientific Integrity, Office of the Associate Director for Science, Office of the Director, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 404-639-7570, PHEthics@cdc.gov.

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Accreditation Statements:

CME: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Continuing Medical Education (ACCME®) to provide continuing medical education for physicians.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention designates this enduring activity for a maximum of 2.0 AMA PRA Category 1 Credits™. Physicians should claim only the credit commensurate with the extent of their participation in the activity.

CNE: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is accredited as a provider of Continuing Nursing Education by the American Nurses Credentialing Center’s Commission on Accreditation.

This activity provides 1.9 contact hours.

IACET CEU: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is authorized by IACET to offer 0.2 CEUs for this program.

CECH: Sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a designated provider of continuing education contact hours (CECH) in health education by the National Commission for Health Education Credentialing, Inc. This program is designed for Certified Health Education Specialists (CHES) and/or Master Certified Health Education Specialists (MCHES) to receive up to 2.0 total Category I continuing education contact hours. Maximum advanced level continuing education contact hours available are 0. CDC provider number 98614.

CPE: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Pharmacy Education as a provider of continuing pharmacy education. This program is a designated event for pharmacists to receive 0.2 CEUs in pharmacy education. The Universal Activity Number is 0387-9999-16-015-H03-P.

This activity is knowledge based.

AAVSB/RACE: This program was reviewed and approved by the AAVSB RACE program for 2.0 hours of continuing education in jurisdictions which recognize AAVSB RACE approval. Please contact the AAVSB RACE program at race@aavsb.org if you have any comments/concerns regarding this program’s validity or relevancy to the veterinary profession.

CPH: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is a pre-approved provider of Certified in Public Health (CPH) recertification credits and is authorized to offer 2.0 CPH recertification credits for this program.

CDC is an approved provider of CPH Recertification Credits by the National Board of Public Health Examiners. Effective October 1, 2013, the National Board of Public Health Examiners (NBPHE) accepts continuing education units (CEU) for CPH recertification credits from CDC. Please select CEU as your choice for continuing education when registering for a course on TCEOnline. Learners seeking CPH should use the guidelines provided by the NBPHE for calculating recertification credits. For assistance please contact NBPHE at http://www.NBPHE.org

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Disclosure:

In compliance with continuing education requirements, all content experts must disclose any financial or other associations with the manufacturers of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services, or commercial supporters as well as any use of unlabeled product(s) or product(s) under investigational use.

CDC, our planners, content experts, and their spouses/partners wish to disclose they have no financial interests or other relationships with the manufacturers of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services, or commercial supporters. Planners have reviewed content to ensure there is no bias.

Content will not include any discussion of the unlabeled use of a product or a product under investigational use.

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Method of Participation:

You may participate in the educational activity through Web-on-demand streaming at https://live.blueskybroadcast.com/bsb/client/CL_DEFAULT.asp?Client=354947&PCAT=6334&CAT=7935

Steps for Accessing the Course

• Click on the following link to get to the course page https://live.blueskybroadcast.com/bsb/client/CL_DEFAULT.asp?Client=354947&PCAT=6334&CAT=7935
• On this page you will need to click on the link to create a NACCHO profile (or log in if you already have a profile). You must be logged into the NACCHO system in order for your participation in the course to be recorded.
• If you would like this training recorded in your CDC training record, please email a copy of your certificate of completion to OSITraining@cdc.gov.

To evaluate this educational activity, receive a certificate/statement of credit/contact hours, to print-out an on-going transcript of all your TCEOnline CE activities for credits/contact hours, please go to: www.cdc.gov/TCEOnline.

Fees:

No fees are charged for CDC’s CE activities.

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