PoPulationand Public HealtH etHics

priority setting. 17 Once more, using pandemic influenza as example, ethical
issues related to how priorities were set for vaccines and anti-viral medications
have been prominently discussed in policy circles.
Should there be core competencies in public health ethics?
The Public Health Agency of Canada has released a set of core competencies
for public health professionals. Unfortunately, few specific competencies for
ethics were identified. The following two quotations typify the views in the
document:
“All public health professionals share a core set of attitudes and values.
These attitudes and values have not been listed as specific core
competencies for public health because they are difficult to teach and
even harder to assess. However, they form the context within which the
competencies are practiced.
If the core competencies are considered as the notes to a musical score,
the values and attitudes that practitioners bring to their work provide
the tempo and emotional component of the music. One may be a technically
brilliant musician but without the correct tempo, rhythm and
emotion, the music will not have the desired effect.” [p.3] 18
It is likely a mistaken belief that all public health professionals share a core
set of attitudes and values. Indeed, there is good reason to believe that this
may not be the case at all, as public health practice draws on a wide range
of professional and academic traditions. There is also good reason to believe
that ethical reasoning and the capacity for moral reasoning can be taught. For
example, the American Public Health Association created a model curriculum
for ethical issues in public health; there are ethics objectives in the training
of public health clinicians; and there are a growing number of ethics-related
courses at the graduate level across Canada and elsewhere.
There is also abundant evidence of the growth of public health ethics as an
academic field with new research and knowledge translation opportunities.
Several full-length scholarly monographs have been published, public health
ethics has been included in major texts in public health and law, sessions on
topics relevant to public health ethics have been held at major international
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