Public health follows certain ethical principles.
(1) Utility principle: Utility refers to the consequences brought by a specific behavior to human beings, including positive utility and negative utility. To adopt a public health policy, the judgment of its effectiveness is to measure the benefits that the policy brings to the target population or members of the whole society in promoting health and preventing diseases and injuries, as well as the possible negative impact on the risks, burdens and other rights and interests of relevant personnel;
(2) The principle of justice: In order to restrain the negative effect of the utility principle, we should also adhere to the principle of justice to correct the injustice caused by the pursuit of maximum utility. The principle of justice generally includes the following contents: distributive justice, procedural justice and reward justice;
(3) The principle of respect: The principle of respect is the most basic and important ethical principle in medical ethics, so it is also applicable to public health ethics, and its core is to require everyone's autonomy, self-determination and privacy. There are two main points: first, people-oriented, and people themselves are the purpose of public health activities, but they cannot be tools for public health purposes; Second, adults have the right to make their own decisions and handle personal affairs, and personal choices should not be manipulated by others.
(4) The principle of mutual assistance: The principle of mutual assistance corresponds to the principle of respect, requiring social members to participate in public health actions. When carrying out public health actions, public health institutions and staff will certainly affect or infringe on personal interests to some extent. However, as a member of society, individuals should understand the importance of public health actions to individuals, groups and the whole society, and participate in the implementation of public health actions in a positive and cooperative manner.