Module 4: Law and Ethics in Public Health

| Introduction | Presentation | Readings | Exercises | References | Evaluation |

Introduction

Although we often think of laws as the way a society encodes its ethics, there are actually some important differences between law and ethics.

This module presents: the relation between law and ethics; the federal, state, and local legal powers in public health; and how public health ethics relates to the powers given to public health by the law.

Objectives:

• Describe three of the several legal powers given to public health.
• Describe an ethical principle in public health that is not encoded in public health law.
• Describe how the exercise of any power is an ethical issue.

Length of presentation:

36 minutes