Ethics training needs for United States public health professionals

¶ … Public Health Ethics Related Training for Public Health Workforce: An Emerging Need in the United States" by a. Kanekar and a. Bitto (2012)

In this study, Kanekar and Bitto (2012) argue that ethical practices in the workplace do not just fall out of the sky, but are rather the result of the translation of ethical theories and concepts into real-world practice. These researchers conducted a meta-analysis of recent published peer-reviewed journal articles concerning ethics in public health practice or public health training. All told, Kanekar and Bitto (2012) identified 15 studies that satisfied their search and inclusion criteria. Based on the analysis of the aggregated results of these studies, Kanekar and Bitto determined that there was an ongoing and essential need for ethics training and codes of ethics in professional organizations. According to these researchers, "We need ethics to organize our goals and actions and to accomplish our values. In essence, ethics evaluates those actions, and the values that underlie them. It determines which values should be pursued, and which should not" (Kanekar & Bitto, 2012, p. 2). Because different professions have different values and standards, these differences are translated and codified through professional codes of ethics that help business managers resolve ethical dilemmas in the workplace (Kanekar & Bitto, 2012). In this regard, the authors note that, "The need for ethics arises from the fact that different professions have to establish a moral credibility for their field. In the [public health] field this needs to be translated into morally acceptable conduct and efforts to resolve ethical dilemmas related to public health practice" (p. 2).

Ethical dilemmas in the workplace, like change, are inevitable and managers at all levels are faced with an enormous range of situations that call for an immediate decision. It is therefore important to provide managers with the ethical training they need to help them understand what is expected of them and how the organization's values translate into ethical practice (Kanekar & Bitto, 2012). Some of the tools and knowledge that ethical training can provide managers include the five main sources of ethical standards for their profession: (a) the utilitarian approach, (b) the rights approach, (c) the fairness or justice approach, (d) the common good approach, and (e) the virtue approach; when managers are confronted with ethical dilemmas, the integration of these analytical frameworks can facilitate ethical-decision making (Kanekar & Bitto, 2012). Likewise, the ethical approaches that are selected in response to ethical dilemmas can be categorized as follows (a) professional ethics (these are ethical principles and guidelines followed by a profession); (b) applied ethics (these are ethical conduct that are applied to real- world settings); (c) advocacy ethics (this is advocacy for social goals and health reforms); and (d) critical ethics (the final approach consists of community involvement in discussions related to ethics in public health policy decisions) (Kanekar & Bitto, 2012).