These days, we are inviting others to collectively discuss practical questions such as:

• What are the core concepts of public health ethics, and how might these be taught to current and future practitioners? • How is ethics incorporated into professional codes, or otherwise translated into decision-making frameworks that will make a difference in day-to-day practice? • If ethics provides a unique shared space and language for conversation among many diverse actors, how can it be harnessed to inform policy?

These and other issues were explored in a series of day-long workshops facilitated by Christopher McDougall and François-Pierre Gauvin in 2011, with Community Health Nurses in Edmonton, Alberta (February), and with Public Health Inspectors in Halifax, Nova Scotia (June) and in Prince George, Vancouver and Kelowna, British Columbia (October).

Christopher and François-Pierre presented a workshop at the Canadian Public Health Association conference (Montréal, June 2011) on approaches to public engagement activities to inform complex and controversial public health issues and policy making. Christopher was also a presenter at a pre-conference workshop a few days earlier on the practical value of various ethical frameworks for public health.

Collaboration
A summary of NCCHPP's activities in the area of public health ethics, as well as of complementary initiatives at the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) and the Public Health Agency of Canada (PHAC), appears in the November/December 2011 (Vol.102, No.6) issue of the Canadian Journal of Public Health. The article, Population and Public Health Ethics in Canada: A Snapshot of Current National Initiatives and Future Issues, (click here for the abstract on the site of the Canadian Journal of Public Health) proposes a common approach to knowledge exchange and capacity-building on public health ethics, highlights possible future directions, and asks questions to stimulate dialogue about the challenges confronting this emerging field in Canada.

Christopher is currently a member of the Scientific Committee presenting a full-day workshop in Montréal in November 2011 at the JASP (Annual Public Health Days) on the ethics of harm reduction, and what such an approach might bring to public health problems other than injection drug use. He is also currently on the Advisory Committee for a Casebook on Population and Public Health Ethics (read more on the CIHR website).



Photo Credit:
© iStockphoto.com/ Beat Bieler