PoPulationand Public HealtH etHics

» the most easily improved and accessible communities; or
» communities with the greatest number of people affected.
Making this decision in an ethical manner would require the federal government
to identify the factor(s) that give a community the greatest claim to the
limited funding available.
Scenario shift
Consider whether your handling of the case would be different if the following
circumstances of the case were different:
» During the study period, a large outbreak of water-borne disease
occurs in a First Nations community that was recently inspected.
» A non-First Nations community outbreak occurs during the study
and people are outraged that there is no equivalent study occurring
in non-First Nations communities.
Questions for discussion
1 What do you think about the federal government’s decision to fund
a large research study to assess risk rather than spending this money
on improving systems of communities already known to be at risk?
What ethical values may have been considered in this decision?
2 If the survey is to be conducted in an ethically justified fashion, what
should the communities be told about the survey and about how the
results will be used?
3 If during the study, a community is assessed as being at particularly
high risk, what sort of interventions should be made before first compiling
and analyzing survey data? What ethical arguments support
these interventions?
4 The federal government has ethical obligations to protect and assist
all at-risk communities. What should be done about at-risk communities
that will not be helped in the near future?
First Nations Drinking Water Policies
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