Ethical Issues in Health Education and Health Promotion: Challenges for the Profession

Abstract

This paper highlights some of the ethical issues that have begun to receive attention in health education. We suggest that a greater awareness of the ethical dimensions of public health policies is needed, and that health educators should play a prominent role in leading public discussions of these issues. We invoke several basic moral principles — including the principles of utility, autonomy, and justice — particularly pertinent to ethical issues in health promotion. These principles are used to examine the issues of individual responsibility and victim blaming, biases in interventions, societal obsessions with health, and the role of the health educator in specific settings.