Ethics in Public Health Decision Making

Ethics in Public Health Decision Making

Imagine that your state legislature is considering a law that would require parental consent for newborn screening. Parental consent is currently not required, although newborn testing is not conducted over parental objection. (Currently only a few states actually require consent.) The health department has been asked to take a position on the pending legislation.

Using the readings for the week, the South University online library, and the Internet, write a 3–5-page paper.

Cover the following:

• What position should the health department take? Use the following six questions to help craft your response (Bernheim, Nieburg, & Bonnie, 2005).

Ethics Guide for Public Health Decision Making

1. What are the public health risks and harms of concern in this particular context?
2. What are the public health goals?
3. Who are the stakeholders and what are their moral claims?
4. Is this source or scope of legal authority in question?
5. Are precedent cases or the historical context relevant?
6. Do professional codes of ethics provide guidance?

Submit your response in a Microsoft Word document

On a separate page, cite all sources using the APA format.

Bernheim, R. G., Nieburg, P., & Bonnie, R. J. (2005). Ethics and the practice of public health. In R A. Goodman (Ed.), Law in public health practice (2nd ed.). Oxford, NY: Oxford University Press.

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You must proofread your paper. But do not strictly rely on your computer’s spell-checker and grammar-checker; failure to do so indicates a lack of effort on your part and you can expect your grade to suffer accordingly. Papers with numerous misspelled words and grammatical mistakes will be penalized. Read over your paper – in silence and then aloud – before handing it in and make corrections as necessary. Often it is advantageous to have a friend proofread your paper for obvious errors. Handwritten corrections are preferable to uncorrected mistakes.

Use a standard 10 to 12 point (10 to 12 characters per inch) typeface. Smaller or compressed type and papers with small margins or single-spacing are hard to read. It is better to let your essay run over the recommended number of pages than to try to compress it into fewer pages.

Likewise, large type, large margins, large indentations, triple-spacing, increased leading (space between lines), increased kerning (space between letters), and any other such attempts at “padding” to increase the length of a paper are unacceptable, wasteful of trees, and will not fool your professor.

The paper must be neatly formatted, double-spaced with a one-inch margin on the top, bottom, and sides of each page. When submitting hard copy, be sure to use white paper and print out using dark ink. If it is hard to read your essay, it will also be hard to follow your argument.