Human Rights and Ethics in Public Health Flashcards

This set of vocabulary flashcards covers key concepts, treaties, and frameworks discussed in the editorial on the integration of human rights and ethics within the field of public health.

Human rights norms

Standards traditionally meant to guide the actions of governments, often incorporated into international law through treaties that impose legal obligations on ratifying nations.

Ethics in health care

A broad field encompassing the specific actions, inspirations, and relationships of individual health workers, researchers, and organizations, often guided by codes of conduct.

Helsinki Code

A code adopted by the World Medical Association in $1964$ that initially focused on research involving human subjects and served as a precursor to the field of bioethics.

Bioethics

A field that includes research in life sciences and health practice ethics; in the United States, it emphasized the central priority of individual autonomy during the late $1960s$ and early $1970s$.

Universal Declaration of Human Rights

A $1948$ document, significantly shaped by Eleanor Roosevelt, reflecting the consensus among governments on what rights should exist globally.

International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights

A treaty that recognizes in article $12$ the right of everyone to the enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health.

International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights

An international agreement that protects freedom of peaceful assembly under article $21$, while accepting restrictions necessary for the protection of public health.

Right to development

An evolving notion that requires governmental initiatives to protect public health interests and promote economic development to generate resources for health and environmental protection.

Proportionality (Health Financing)

A human rights-based principle requiring that individuals with the least resources pay the least, both in absolute terms and as a proportion of their total resources.

CIOMS

The Council for International Organizations of Medical Sciences, which produced guidelines for the ethical review of epidemiological studies in $1991$.

World Health Organization (WHO) definition of health

Defined as a state of "physical, mental and social well-being."

5-point agenda for the health sector

A framework to promote population health including institutionalizing human rights, strengthening public health functions, equitable financing, effective service delivery for preventable conditions, and monitoring development policies.