Full Description
Public health is a particular area of medical practice that raises a series of philosophical issues that require urgent discussion. The philosophy of public health includes metaphysical questions such as, what do we mean by 'public' in public health? How ought we to conceptualise the idea of 'populations'? Are they merely aggregations of individuals? It also includes epistemological questions such as, what methods are most appropriate for thinking about public health? How do empirical and normative issues relate to each other? Controversial ethical, political and social issues, including those relating to vaccinations, the threat of pandemics and possible restrictions to individual liberties, public health research, screening and obesity policy should also be considered. This volume includes a diverse set of papers exploring a number of the most important theoretical and practical issues that arise across the whole field of the philosophy of public health.
Contents
Contents: Introduction: the philosophy of public health, Angus Dawson; The role of law in public health, Robyn Martin; Luck, risk and prevention, Katherine King; The duty to promote social capital, Patricia Illingworth; On the evaluative space for measuring public health performance, Onyebuchi A. Arah; Global concerns and local arguments: how a localized bioethics may perpetuate injustice, Søren Holm; Health in developing countries and our global responsibilities, Gillian Brock; Shared responsibility agreements: causes of contention, Paula Boddington; Anti-paternalism and public health policy: the case of product safety legislation, Kalle Grille; Newborn screening and choosing whether to know, Niels Nijsingh; Choosing to sleep, Benjamin Hale and Lauren Hale; Categories of constraint and avenues of freedom: proposing collective agency for addressing problems of obesity, Catherine A. Womack; Equipoise in public health research, Marcel Verweij; Closing the book on infectious disease: the mischievous consequences for bioethics and for public health, Leslie P. Francis, Margaret P. Battin, Jay A. Jacobson and Charles B. Smith; The common good argument and HIV prevention, Charlotte Paul; Contagious disease and rights, T.M. Wilkinson; Index
