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January 2004, Vol 94, No. 1 | American Journal of Public Health 7
© 2004 American Public Health Association

LETTER

THE PUBLIC IN PUBLIC HEALTH ETHICS: THE PUBLIC HEALTH SOCIETY RESPONDS

Terry Brandenburg, MBA, MPA, James Guillory, DO, MPH, Alan Melnick, MD, MPH, James C. Thomas, MPH, PhD and Clayton Williams, MPH

The authors are affiliated with the Public Health Leadership Society. Terry Brandenburg is with the West Allis Health Department, West Allis, Wis. James Guillory is with the Department of Preventive Medicine, University of Health Sciences, Kansas City, Mo. Alan Melnick is with Clackamas County, Ore, and the joint residency program in family/preventive medicine at the Oregon Health and Science University School of Medicine, Portland. James C. Thomas is with the Department of Epidemiology and the Program in Public Health Ethics, School of Public Health, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill. Clayton Williams is with the Louisiana Public Health Institute, New Orleans.

Correspondence: Requests for reprints should be sent to Clayton Williams, MPH, Public Health Leadership Society, 1600 Canal St, Suite 501, New Orleans, LA 70112 (e-mail: cwilliams{at}lphi.org).

The Public Health Leadership Society (PHLS) would like to thank Lear for his thoughtful comments on the Principles of the Ethical Practice of Public Health (more commonly known as the Public Health Code of Ethics).1 As the organization that led the development of the code, PHLS is pleased to respond to Lear’s comments by clarifying how we arrived at the present version. The code emerged as a result of our profound respect for the rights of individuals in the communities we serve and our enduring commitment to assuring the public’s health.

Development of the code was initiated and led by what is now the PHLS Standing Committee on Public Health Ethics, which consists of public health professionals from local, state, and national public health practice organizations and public health academia. These individuals were formally encouraged to develop the code during a town hall meeting attended by representatives from a broad range of stakeholders at the 2000 Annual Meeting of the American Public Health Association (APHA) in Boston, Mass. A draft code was reviewed and critiqued in May 2001 in Kansas City, Mo, by 25 public health professionals and ethicists. A revised version was presented for discussion at another town hall meeting at the 2001 Annual Meeting in Atlanta, Ga. Before the meeting, the code was published on the APHA Web site and an e-mail address was provided for public reactions and feedback. The present code reflects input and discussion from all of these forums, and the development process was described in the Journal2 and on the APHA Web site.

While PHLS went to considerable lengths to elicit feedback from a broad range of stakeholders, including the public, during the development process, it was not feasible to involve every individual or organization that might have had meaningful feedback to offer. However, PHLS has a continued commitment to providing opportunities for public comment (see http://www.phls.org/products.htm and http://www.apha.org/codeofethics). Thanks in part to the support of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, feedback continues to be collected and catalogued by PHLS, and an updating of the code is anticipated every 2 to 3 years.

References

1. Lear WJ. Where’s the public in public health ethics? Am J Public Health. 2003;93:1033.[Free Full Text]

2. Thomas JC, Sage M, Dillenberg J, Guillory VJ. A code of ethics for public health. Am J Public Health. 2002;92:1057–1059.[Free Full Text]


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