Law and Ethnics

Question 1

Why are law and ethnics important in public health?

Answer 1

Law and ethics provide the framework for decision-making regarding interventions that keep populations healthy.

Question 2

What are public health laws?

Answer 2

PH laws are formal practices enforced by authorities exemplified by statutes, regulations and court decisions.

Question 3

What are public health ethnics?

Answer 3

PH ethics arise from informational policies and codes of professional conduct to guide public health practice.

Question 4

What does the practice of PH law do and address?

Answer 4

The law addresses the government’s power and duty to protect the public’s health and the limitations on those powers.

PH law balances the assurance of the common good with the protection of civil liberties.

Question 5

What is the role of PH ethics on the law?

Answer 5

Ethics play an important role to law and refers to the discipline that examines what practices make good conduct in a particular situation or dilemma. The study of ethics help to determine and justify the most appropriate course of action.

Question 6

Federalism

Answer 6

Term that describes the distribution of power between the individual states and the national government.

Question 7

What are the 3 branches of the state and federal levels of government?

Answer 7

Legislative, Executive, and Judicial branches.

Question 8

What are public health regulations?

Answer 8

Regulations are the set of rules that describe the implementation of legislation.

• promulgated by the executive branch (ex: president and admin agencies like the CDC or FDA)

Question 9

Protected Health Information (PHI)

Answer 9

Any identifiable information about an individual, including demographic data, physical or mental health condition, or receipt of health care services.

Question 10

Who are the covered entities under HIPAA?

Answer 10

health care providers, health care plans, and healthcare clearing houses.

Question 11

What are permitted disclosures?

Answer 11

Permitted disclosures relates to safety and welfare.
Ex: disclosing PHI of victims of abuse to appropriate authorities.

Question 12

Parens patriae

Answer 12

The state’s legal action on behalf of individuals who cannot protect themselves, such as suspected victims of child neglect or elder abuse.

Question 13

What is the HIPAA privacy rule?

Answer 13

The rule specifies specific circumstances in which a covered entity may use and disclose PHI, including when an individual’s authorization is required for the entity to share the PHI.

Question 14

Public Health Surveillance

Answer 14

The acquisition, use, retention, and transmission of data about the population’s health that supports essential functions of the public health system.

Question 15

10th Amendment

Answer 15

Enables states to exercise all powers that are neither given to the federal government nor prohibited by the constitution.

Question 16

Police Powers

Answer 16

The coercive powers of states to enact laws and promulgate regulations to protect the public health and to promote the common good.

Question 17

4th Amendment

Answer 17

US constitution’s protection against unreasonable search and seizure.

Question 18

Civil Commitment Order

Answer 18

An order by the state which confines an individual in a medical facility for a specific period of time.

Question 19

What are the human rights principles?

Answer 19

Freedom, Equality, Equal protection under the law, and the right to a standard of living adequate for the health and well-being of themself and family.

Question 20

What is social justice?

Answer 20

What is fair, equitable, and appropriate treatment in light of what is due or owed groups.

It requires that public health practitioners examine questions of how some groups face disproportionate risk of disease aka health disparities.

Question 21

What are the fundamental causes of disease?

Answer 21

Environmental conditions, occupational exposures, genetics, or lifestyle factors.

Question 22

Distributive Justice

Answer 22

The allocation of benefits.

Question 23

Environmental Justice

Answer 23

The fair treatment of all people in the application of public health policy that reduces the disparity in the exposure to environmental contamination.

Question 24

What are the steps in ethical decision making?

Answer 24

1. analyzing the ethical issues
2. evaluating the ethical dimensions of the various PH options
3. providing justification for on particular PH action

Question 25

Informed Consent

Answer 25

Required by the American Public Health Association Code of Ethics prior to public intervention.

Question 26

What setting should informed consent be made in?

Answer 26

In a setting, that must be done under the absence of pressure or coercion.

Question 27

What is the Belmont Report?

Answer 27

1974 by the Commission for the Protection of Human Subjects in Biomedical and Behavioral Research.

Set forth 3 ethnical principles

Question 28

What are the 3 ethnical principles of the Belmont Report?

Answer 28

1. Respect for persons – autonomous people w/ consent
2. Beneficence – protecting the well-being of participants and benefits of research are greater than the risks.
3. Justice – Are benefits and burdens distributed fairly and do affected groups have agency?

Question 29

Which -ism concepts are included in ethical theories for public health interventions?

Answer 29

Utilitarianism, communitarianism, and liberalism.

Question 30

Utilitarianism

Answer 30

Promotes the goal of the “greatest good for the greatest number” with less concern for individual rights than for social benefit.

Question 31

Communitarianism

Answer 31

Theory that individuals are inseparable from community life and that no one person and no one community can ever be completely self-determining.

Question 32

Liberalism

Answer 32

Focus on individual rights and freedom of choice.

Question 33

What is essential to sustainable public health policy?

Answer 33

Public health trust – and it is important to avoid unnecessary command or force without reason to ensure public health trust.

Question 34

What is essential to public health professionalism?

Answer 34

Fiduciary duty to truth-telling and transparency.

Question 35

What is priority setting in the context of health planning?

Answer 35

It is when public health departments engage with the community in decisions about allocation of scarce resources. This is important when there are conflicting beliefs and views on an intervention or where public funding should be allocated.