Quality and Ethics in HealthRelated Information

1
Quality and Ethics in Health-Related Information

• Fernando Lolas Stepke
• Bioethics PAHO/WHO

2
Levels of Cognitive Construction

• Facts Information
• Data and news (meaningful information)
• Knowledge (organized information)
• Formal knowledge
• Lay knowledge and beliefs
• Wisdom (personal virtue)

3
Health-Related Literature

• Scientific Primary
• Secondary
• Tertiary
• Non-scientific Quaternary
• News/Popular

4
Data versus News

• Specialized audience
• Expert rhetoric
• Impersonal
• Truthfulness

• General audience
• Resources
• Person-related
• Novelty

5
Health Information asPublic Good

• Publicness in consumption
• Publicness in net benefits
• Publicness in decision making

6
FORMS of COMMUNITY

• Gemeinschaft
• Social relations are ends in themselves
• Face-to-face encounters
• Retributive justice

• Gesellschaft
• Social relations are means to achieve goals
• Impersonal (moral imagination)
• Distributive justice

7
ETHICAL ANALYSIS

• Formulation
• Justification of
• Application
• VALUES
• PRINCIPLES
• NORMS

of
8
BIOETHICAL PRINCIPLES

• Respect for persons
• Beneficence
• Non Maleficence
• Justice
• OTHERS

9
Application of principles

• Goal - based
• Duty - based
• Rights - based

10
QUALITY OF INFORMATION

• Facts versus News distinction is relevant
• Social interest is a key concept
• Conflicts of interests should be considered
• Trust is a diachronic good

11
KNOWLEDGE AND POWER

• Knowledge is power
• Power creates knowledge ?
• Freedom of vs freedom for
• Opinion engineering
• Ethical sustainability may require prudence