Public Ethics Research Articles

AI Governance: A Challenge for Public Health.

The rapid evolution of artificial intelligence (AI) is structuralizing social, political, and economic determinants of health into the invisible algorithms that shape all facets of modern life. Nevertheless, AI holds immense potential as a public health tool, enabling beneficial objectives such as precision public health and medicine. Developing an AI governance framework that can maximize the benefits and minimize the risks of AI is a significant challenge. The benefits of public health engagement in AI governance could be extensive. Here, we describe how several public health concepts can enhance AI governance. Specifically, we explain how (1) harm reduction can provide a framework for navigating the governance debate between traditional regulation and "soft law" approaches; (2) a public health understanding of social determinants of health is crucial to optimally weigh the potential risks and benefits of AI; (3) public health ethics provides a toolset for guiding governance decisions where individual interests intersect with collective interests; and (4) a One Health approach can improve AI governance effectiveness while advancing public health outcomes. Public health theories, perspectives, and innovations could substantially enrich and improve AI governance, creating a more equitable and socially beneficial path for AI development.

Do Early Supported Discharge Teams Increase the Proportion of Stroke Patients Discharged Directly Home from Acute Hospitals in Ireland?

Abstract Background Early Supported Discharge teams for stroke are associated with improved patient, rehabilitative outcomes, quality of life and potentially reduced mortality. Over the last 5 years the number of ESD teams and the proportion of patients discharge under their care has increased. What is unclear is to what extent has the growth in discharges with ESD support from acute hospitals represent additional discharges or patients who would have been discharged anyway but now receive rehabilitation and support post discharge. Methods Data on patients discharged directly home from the Irish National Stroke Audit (INAS) between January 2018 and December 2022 were analysed along with ESD data. This is the five-year period for which comprehensive data on ESD has been collected by INAS. Data used were available on public platforms and ethics approval was not necessary. Chi Square Statistics were performed, using proprietary software to compare proportions. Results Data on 23183 inpatient episodes were analysed, 57% of patients were male. INAS cases increased 34% from 3730 in 2018 to 4999 in 2022. Proportion of patients with unknown discharge destination (2.5%-2.9%) and who died (11.0%-10.8%) remained stable across the period. Proportion discharged home increased from 55.6% in 2018 to 59.5% in 2022 (Chi Sq 13.0, p=0.0003), (4.9% absolute, 7.0% relative). Proportion of ESD discharges increased from 3.7% to 9.8% of all patients (Chi Sq 117.3, p<0.0001) and from 6.7% to 16.5% of direct discharges home (Chi Sq 106.6, p<0.0001). However, direct discharges home without ESD support declined from 51.9% to 49.7% of the total population (Chi Sq 4.16, p=0.04). This suggests that, compared to 2018, 64% of ESD discharges in 2022 were additional and contingent on ESD availability. Conclusion ESD is an effective way of increasing direct discharges of people with stroke home from hospital. The proportion of patients with access to ESD remains low.

Ethical and Transformative Scholarly Public Engagement: Pitfalls, Possibilities and Promises.

At its core, public engagement is geared toward transformative ends - to change the world for the better. Yet, the means are also critical. Scholars who engage communities and public processes should do so ethically, in ways that comport with core values. Despite good intentions, however, researchers seeking to engage the public face substantial challenges. This paper highlights the pitfalls and perils associated with scholarly public engagement and points to the promise of ethical and transformative engagement - that is, engagement for sound reasons carried out in effective ways. I make the case that ethical and transformative public engagement requires that researchers remain aware of their position, attentive to who is being engaged and discerning about how to engage.

Navigating ethical challenges in Indonesian digital public relations practices

<p>The emergence of Digital Public Relations (PR) management has revolutionized the way in which corporations communicate with their public, utilizing digital platforms to provide more dynamic and interactive communication. Nevertheless, this digital revolution has also resulted in a multitude of ethical dilemmas and challenges. This study aims to analyze the ethical dimensions of Digital Public Relations management in Indonesia, with a particular focus on the challenges encountered and the approaches employed for navigating them. This qualitative study employs in-depth interview as data collection method with two experienced Indonesian PR practitioners to gain comprehensive and detailed observations. The findings highlight various notable challenges in digital PR management, encompassing the need to uphold transparency in communications and guarantee social responsibility in every PR strategy. This study suggests an Ethical Digital Public Relations model that includes three fundamental ethical values: transparency, privacy management, and social responsibility, based on the aforementioned findings. Ultimately, the study recommends PR practitioners to adhere to these three values in order to successfully address ethical dilemmas and strengthen the credibility as well as reliability of their digital PR management. By upholding these values, PR practitioners can effectively handle ethical challenges and make a beneficial impact on the growing field of digital public relations.<strong></strong></p>

The Need for Historical Fluency in Pandemic Law and Policy.

The primary claim of this essay is that historical fluency is required for effective work in crafting legal and policy interventions as a part of public health emergency preparedness and response (PHEPR). At a broad level, public health law is explicitly recognized as a key systems-level component of PHEPR practice.1 This essay therefore focuses on the extent to which historical fluency is necessary or at least useful to all aspects of PHEPR that draw on or deploy legal and policy mechanisms (e.g., design, planning, implementation, dissemination, monitoring and evaluation, etc.). The essay collectively refers to these legal and policy mechanisms as epidemic law and policy response (ELAPR). Part I explains the concept of historical fluency. Part II explores the foundations of public health law both as a way of highlighting key structural features of ELAPR and in supporting the claim that historical fluency is critical for ELAPR. Part III applies the previous arguments to a specific case study to highlight the promise and power of historical fluency - the outbreak of bubonic plague in San Francisco in 1900. Tracking this essay's pragmatic focus, part IV offers several recommendations for how specifically historical fluency in public health law and ethics can be operationalized in PHEPR practice and policy. Part V summarizes and concludes.

The Application of Criminal Law in Addressing Corruption Crimes: Strategies and Challenges

Corruption poses a substantial challenge for Indonesia, affecting community life, national development, and state functioning. It leads to significant financial losses and economic repercussions for both perpetrators and the nation. To combat this issue, it's essential to harmonize legislation, enhance international cooperation, and develop an integrated approach to law enforcement while encouraging active community participation. Addressing corruption requires improvements in education, training, and the instillation of moral values. This research aims to understand the characteristics of normative legal knowledge and to explore legal regulations and their principles using a normative juridical approach, relying on secondary data analysis. Active prevention of corruption and a proactive role for corruption courts are crucial. Key findings suggest the need for rigorous law enforcement, the abolition of gratuities, increased transparency, and enhanced public ethics. Collaboration among the government, law enforcement, and the community is vital to effectively tackle corruption. Fair law enforcement and legal certainty must be ensured to build a collective conviction among stakeholders. A multifaceted approach is necessary for effective corruption eradication, including system improvements, educational campaigns, and repressive actions. Sustained efforts can minimize corruption's negative impacts, foster public trust, attract investors, and uphold national dignity while deterring corrupt activities. Furthermore, maximizing the recovery of state funds lost to corruption is essential for the nation’s integrity and development.

A Research On Communıcatı on Problems Between Unıversıty Students And Theır Parents: The Case Of Muş Alparslan Unıversıty

Communication is a social phenomenon. Itensures the personal existence of individual sand the continuation of relations within the society. In family communication, the ability of family members to underst and eachot her, to support eachot her, and to make the right directions depends on a healthy communication. This study was approved by Muş Alparslan University Scientific Research and Publication Ethics Committee with the decision dated 31.10.2023 and 115131. In thisstudy, it was tried to determine the communication problems of university students witht heir parents. In this direction, data were obtainedusing quantitative research method. A questionnaire wasapplied to 390 students studying at Muş Alparslan University in order to determine the levels of universitystudents' educational life, friends and social environment and communication within the family. According to the data obtained, it is seen that the participants' educational lives are under the close monitoring of the family, they feel family pressure to study more, academic success is compared with others by family members, and the family is not in contact with the counselor (responsible educator). It was also found that there were problems with the family in choosing friends, there were problem swith the family in choosing clothes, the family careda bout the thoughts of the individual, and feelings were not openly expressed to thefamily. Inaddition, it was determined that parents did not discriminate between siblings, obeying family rules was important fort he family, family members were interested in problems and cared about the person.

Data sharing policies across health research globally: Cross-sectional meta-research study.

Data sharing improves the value, synthesis, and integrity of research, but rates are low. Data sharing might be improved if data sharing policies were prominent and actionable at every stage of research. We aimed to systematically describe the epidemiology of data sharing policies across the health research lifecycle. This was a cross-sectional analysis of the data sharing policies of the largest health research funders, all national ethics committees, all clinical trial registries, the highest-impact medical journals, and all medical research data repositories. Stakeholders' official websites, online reports, and other records were reviewed up to May 2022. The strength and characteristics of their data sharing policies were assessed, including their policies on data sharing intention statements (a.k.a. data accessibility statements) and on data sharing specifically for coronavirus disease studies. Data were manually extracted in duplicate, and policies were descriptively analysed by their stakeholder and characteristics. Nine hundred and thirty-five eligible stakeholders were identified: 110 funders, 124 ethics committees, 18 trial registries, 273 journals, and 410 data repositories. Data sharing was required by 41% (45/110) of funders, no ethics committees or trial registries, 19% (52/273) of journals and 6% (24/410) of data repositories. Among funder types, a higher proportion of private (63%, 35/55) and philanthropic (67%, 4/6) funders required data sharing than public funders (12%, 6/49). Data sharing requirements, and even recommendations, were insufficient across health research. Where data sharing was required or recommended, there was limited guidance on implementation. We describe multiple pathways to improve the implementation of data sharing. Public funders and ethics committees are two stakeholders with particularly important untapped opportunities.

Data Modernization Opportunity: Alignment between US Public Health Data Policies and Public Health Ethics

Objective and ApproachModernizing data sharing policies is key to fix deficiencies exposed by COVID-19. Decentralized US public health data collection, with varying state laws, challenges data sharing across governmental entities. Many data protection laws rest on bioethical principles that de-emphasize collective interests, creating challenges for public health data governance. Here, we analyze US state public health data laws with WHO ethical guidelines, using a modified policy surveillance method to examine laws regulating data sharing between public health partners. We assess state law alignment with WHO guidelines for (1) public health data use, (2) research use, (3) emergency use, and (4) law enforcement use. ResultsWe found 34 states with laws explicitly allowing data sharing with federal public health agencies, 16 states permitting data sharing for research, 10 with provisions for emergencies, and 14 states permitting some data sharing for law enforcement. ConclusionsEfficient US public health data modernization needs policies that enable effective data sharing with proper justification and governance. The WHO offers guidance on ethically sharing sensitive data, but many US states' laws don't align with these guidelines, based on public health ethics. Instead, state laws often reflect bioethical standards, which are increasingly seen as unsuitable for managing population data in public health. ImplicationsSupportive policies are crucial for allowing population data to be used for social benefits. Policies that go against ethical guidelines and impose unnecessary obstacles to data sharing can hinder vital activities, like record linkage, that support public health efforts and collective benefits.

Pedagogic Strategies and Contents in Medical Writing/Publishing Education: A Comprehensive Systematic Survey.

Workshops or training sessions on medical writing and publishing exist worldwide. We aimed to evaluate published articles about such workshops and examine both the content and teaching strategies employed. We searched ISI Web of Science, Ovid EMBASE, ERIC, Ovid Medline, and the grey literature. We considered no language, geographical location, or time period limitations. We included randomized controlled trials, before-after studies, surveys, cohort studies, and program evaluation and development studies. We descriptively reported the results. Out of 222 articles that underwent a full-text review, 30 were deemed eligible. The educational sessions were sporadic, with researchers often developing their own content and methods. Fifteen articles reported teaching the standard structure of medical articles, ten articles reported on teaching optimal English language use for writing articles, nine articles discussed publication ethics issues, and three articles discussed publication strategies to enhance the chance of publication. Most reports lacked in-depth descriptions of the content and strategies used, and the approach to those topics was relatively superficial. Existing workshops have covered topics such as the standard structure of articles, publication ethics, techniques for improving publication rates, and how to use the English language. However, many other topics are left uncovered. The reports and practice of academic-teaching courses should be improved.

Knowledge and Practices Related to Research Misconduct among Healthcare Researchers in India: Cross-Sectional Study

ABSTRACT Introduction: Practices known to harm the integrity of scientific and medical research during planning, conduct, documentation, and reporting are termed as research misconduct. It is an unfortunate, prevalent reality of the research world. In the present study, we tried to assess the knowledge about research misconduct, its determinants, observed practices of research misconduct among healthcare practitioners, level of satisfaction with the order of authorship in one’s published manuscript, and their views for action to be taken against those involved in research misconduct in our institution. Materials and Methods: This cross-sectional study recruited eligible participants (Faculty Members and Senior Residents of Medical, Dental, and Nursing Professionals) through one-to-one interviews and web-based platforms. Data analysis was conducted by using Statistical Package for the Social Sciences 23(SPSS-23). Result: Of the 356 participants, around 60% had complete knowledge about research misconduct, and 74.2% had observed research misconduct in their workplace at some point in time. There was no association between correct knowledge about research misconduct and the type of healthcare researchers, awareness of the International Committee of Journal of Medical Ethics (ICJME), and training on good clinical practices. 54.8% of the participants considered those involved in research misconduct should not be permitted to be co-guide and guide of students. Conclusion: Training of healthcare researchers on publication ethics and good clinical practice guidelines seems to improve knowledge about research misconduct. Further, stringent action should be taken against those who conduct research misconduct.

Backmatter (Publication Ethics, Copyright Transfer Agreement for Publishing Form)

Backmatter (Publication Ethics, Copyright Transfer Agreement for Publishing Form)

“Mirroring” the World Versus “World-Making”: The Crisis of Ethics in Indian Mental Health Systems

In the context of neoliberalism and increasing globalization, technocratization, and scientification of mental health care, people suffering from socio-politico-economic problems ranging from poverty to structural violence are often transmogrified into “patients” with mental health problems to be “treated” with psychopharmaceuticals and individualized psychological therapies. Drawing from three socio-political issues India witnessed in the past 3 years, concerning three marginalized sections, namely, farmers, LGBTQIA+ people, and migrant workers, I illustrate the silence of mainstream mental health disciplines in India on sheer instances of structural violence and social suffering. Deflection of attention from human rights violations by mainstream mental health systems raises critical questions about the ethics and politics of mental health disciplines. The social, political, and material contexts that are central to lived experiences are almost always unaccounted in mental health academia, research, and practice. Engaging people with lived experiences advances equity by breaking down power dynamics, establishing collaborative decision-making, and improving equitable outcomes. Thus, knowledge production in mental health becomes irrelevant to political action and transformative policies that are crucial for positive mental health outcomes. By ignoring and thus implicitly sanctioning discriminatory, exploitive neoliberal architecture, mental health systems maintain the very upstream factors that cultivate and sustain mental distress. In this way, mainstream mental health practice in India fails to undertakeworld-making, raising deeper questions in public mental health ethics.

The Unique and Important Jewish Responses to Proposition 8 and Marriage Equality

ABSTRACTMarriage equality is a nascent and fragile civil right in the United States. To protect this civil right we must articulate and preserve diverse religious, ethical, and legal positions from the marriage equality debates. Sadly, and incorrectly, both the popular and scholarly narratives of religions' public role and ethics on marriage equality have been told with a Christocentric and “God versus Gay” framing. Here I push the borders of that frame to include the crucially important story of Judaism and the Prop 8 marriage equality debates. Judaism made and still makes vital and unique contributions to the battle for marriage equality: the majority of Jewish congregations and organizations are in favor of marriage equality, as opposed to the majority of Christianities which are against it. Judaism models diversity within the tradition, for example how to be opposed to same‐sex marriage but not expect that it will be illegal. Jewish positions on marriage equality in the public sphere model how the civil rights of marriage equality and religious liberty can coexist and thrive.

Questionnaire survey for the International Journal of Legal Medicine on the occassion of the 26th triennal meeting of the International Academy of Legal Medicine.

A questionnaire was prepared in advance of the 26th triennial conference of the International Academy of Legal Medicine (IALM) and sent to 474 email addresses included in the IALM mailing list. The questionnaire addressed three current challenges faced by the International Journal of Legal Medicine (IJLM): the publication of guidelines and validation studies in the field of legal medicine, the publication ethics of case reports, and the recruitment of new reviewers for the IJLM. The response rate was 20%. The survey results highlight the need for international guidelines in various areas of legal medicine. Some desired guidelines already exist. To provide visibility and knowledge of the existing national guidelines, the IJLM has launched a Topical Collection on Quality Assurance in Legal Medicine. This collection aims to inform readers about country-specific characteristics of legal medicine structures and the existing national guidelines.Around 80% of the participants stated that there are legal or ethical requirements for the publication of forensic case reports or case series. Various options for obtaining consent for publication are discussed. Eighty-six of the 97 participants indicated their willingness to review manuscripts for the IJLM. It is emphasized that the contributions of reviewers should be duly recognized and valued.

Evaluation of Factors Affecting the Health-Related Quality of Life in End-Stage Renal Disease Patients Receiving Hemodialysis Treatment in Northern Cyprus.

Introduction Health-related quality of life (HR-QoL) is recognized as an important predictor of mortality and morbidity in end-stage renal disease (ESRD) patients receiving hemodialysis (HD). The goal of this study was to obtain HR-QoL scores using the Kidney Disease and Quality of Life questionnaire (KDQOL-36TM) (RAND Corporation, Santa Monica, CA) and to assess the factors affecting HR-QoL in ESRD patients receiving HD. Methods A multicenter cross-sectional study was performed using the KDQOL-36TM for the assessment of HR-QoL of ESRD patients receiving HD in Northern Cypriotstate hospitals. Alongside KDQOL-36TM scores for assessing HR-QoL, sociodemographic as well as relevant laboratory data were collected. Spearman Correlations and multiple linear regression analyses using the 'stepwise' method were carried out to identify predictors of HR-QoL. Nonparametric tests were used to determine significantly (p<0.05) associated variables. Ethical approvals were received from the Northern Cypriot Ministry of Health and Eastern Mediterranean University Research and Publication Ethics Boards. Results One hundred and thirty-eight participants were recruited in this study, corresponding to 85.1% of the total study population. Participants had a mean age of 66.49 ± 13.35. 65.2% of the participants were males. Participants had low scores on most dimensions of quality of life, namely, Burden of Disease, Physical Component Summary (PCS), and Mental Component Summary (MCS) subscales. Particularly, females, unemployed patients, and patients with more comorbidities had significantly lower scores (p=0.003, p<0.001, and p=0.005, respectively). Spearman correlation analyses revealed multiple significant moderate correlations between sociodemographic data, laboratory variables, and scores. Furthermore, multiple linear regression analysis identified gender (p=0.006), total number of comorbidities (p=0.005), age (p<0.001), and patient care (p=0.019) as significant predictors of KDQOL-36TM scores. Conclusion This study has shown that the quality of life of hemodialysis patients was highly impaired. Gender, current employment status, and presence of comorbidities were all significant independent factors affecting HR-QoL mean scores. Lastly, further studies regarding the implementation of routine HR-QoL surveillance and targeted interventions are required to better understand their potential therapeutic benefits.

Citizens as Co-producers of Public Service Culture: How Citizen Incivility Affects Public Employee Motivations to Stay and Serve

While public administration ethics literature has accumulated a significant amount of knowledge on how to promote public service culture steeped in ethics, the primary focus of the scholarly discussion has long been on the importance of developing ethics among public employees and in their organizations. Based on the premise that citizens are co-producers of the public service culture, this study turns attention to citizens and their commitment to ethical values when interacting with public employees. Specifically, this study examines how citizen incivility influences public employee work attitudes, particularly public employee turnover intention and their desire to serve the public. The analyses were conducted using survey data collected from Korean public employees. The findings suggest that citizen incivility is negatively associated with public employees’ motivation to serve the public (i.e., public service motivation), that citizen incivility is positively associated with public employee intention to leave their jobs, and that the relationship between uncivil citizen behaviors and public employee turnover intention is partially mediated through public service motivation.

Towards a psychotherapy publishing ethics concordat

ABSTRACT The changing landscape of data management and privacy have far-reaching implications for psychotherapy research regarding confidentiality, informed consent, and data de-identification in scientific publications. This paper reports on discussions among international psychotherapy journal editors regarding ethical guidelines governing publishing qualitative case study research. A range of psychotherapy journals have been examined and it notable that there is a variegated approach to consent and data-identification, and there are contested ethical standpoints when it comes to publishing research. These contestations are presented and six key areas for debate are set out, i) explicit informed consent, ii) prospective and retrospective consent, iii) data de-identification and bricolage, iv) withdrawing consent, v) education and training, and vi) inconsentable circumstances. These are set out as base for further discussion towards the development of a Psychotherapy Publishing Ethics Concordat (PEC).

RETRACTION: Evaluation of Proteome Dynamics: Implications for Statistical Confidence in Mass Spectrometric Determination.

I. Popova, E. Savelyeva, T. Degtyarevskaya, D. Babaskin, and A. Vokhmintsev, "Evaluation of Proteome Dynamics: Implications for Statistical Confidence in Mass Spectrometric Determination," Proteomics 24, no. 14 (2024): 2300351, https://doi.org/10.1002/pmic.202300351. The above article, published online on 03 May 2024 in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com), has been retracted by agreement between the journal Editor-in-Chief, Lucie Kalvodova; and Wiley-VCH GmbH. The retraction has been agreed due to a major unattributed overlap between the figures and figure legends of this article (Figures 2-7) and another article previously published elsewhere by a different group of authors [1]. Such publishing practice is against the journal's policy and Wiley's Best Practice Guidelines on Research Integrity and Publishing Ethics. The co-authors, I. Popova, T. Degtyarevskaya, D. Babaskin, and A. Vokhmintsev stated that they did not participate in the writing and submission of the article and gave no consent for publication. E. Savelyeva remained unresponsive. REFERENCES 1. H. Boekweg, A. J. Guise, E. D. Plowey, R. T. Kelly, and S. Payne, "Calculating Sample Size Requirements for Temporal Dynamics in Single-Cell Proteomics," Molecular & Cellular Proteomics 20, (2021): 100085, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.mcpro.2021.100085.

Genomic sequencing in newborn screening: balancing consent with the right of the asymptomatic at-risk child to be found.

In this paper, we explore key aspects of the complex ethical and legal landscape surrounding consent in the context of incorporating genomic sequencing into existing newborn bloodspot screening programs. In particular, we consider the potential impact of genomic sequencing on the health rights of the child in relation to existing consent practices in newborn screening. We begin with an introduction to newborn screening programs and their population health goals. We then discuss public health ethics as a rationale underpinning newborn screening before turning to consent. We go on to describe seven current research projects on genomic sequencing in newborn screening and then introduce the 'right of the asymptomatic at-risk child to be found' as a useful concept to draw on when considering consent to newborn screening. We draw on this novel right to argue for the adoption of "appropriate consent" when it comes to certain uses of genomics in newborn screening. We contend that, for 'virtual panels' at least, appropriate consent proportionately balances the ongoing universality of newborn screening for important health conditions with an acknowledgement of the complex outcomes that bringing a complicated diagnostic technology into the screening domain will generate.