Abstract

The need for an explicit nurturing of ethical lens to public health practice has been increasingly stated, yet such training is rare and/or inadequate. Very few public health education programs in India have an explicit module on public health ethics, and even where imparted, it is skewed towards biomedical and/or research ethics. This chapter takes the readers through a journey on designing and transacting a course on Ethics in Public Health Practice as part of a Master’s Program in Development in Azim Premji University. It shows how clarity in learning objectives with pedagogical processes including case studies, simulations, film discussions and group work can go a long way in building capacity of public health professionals to develop skills in discerning ethical dilemmas and conceive of possibilities of resolutions through continuous deliberations and reflections. This course demystifies ethics as the prerogative of “ethicists” by bringing home the point that ethics is integral to public health practice and hence public health training must embed ethics explicitly and intentionally in its programs. It hence expands the discussion of public health ethics to include the wider canvas of public health practice including agenda setting, policy-making, program design, implementation and evaluation and research settings.