The public health ethics, law and policy stream of AABHL aims to encourage discussion of ethical, legal and policy issues relating to all aspects of public health. This has been a growing area of academic interest, especially over the last ten years.

Relevant topics include ethical, legal and policy issues relating to: infectious disease, chronic disease, ‘lifestyle choices,’ environmental impacts on health, pollution, socio-economic determinants, health systems, indigenous health, migration, climate change, prevention and population approaches to health and diagnosis, health and welfare etc. We are particularly keen to involve early career researchers in this stream and ensure that the developing activities in public health ethics, law and policy within the region are strengthened in the future.

Current stream leaders invite you to contact them via email to help shape the future directions of this stream: [email protected]

Upcoming Event:

The Social and Ethical Dimensions of Screening – Old problems, new developments

Event Details:

Please join us on Zoom on Wednesday May 7^th at noon Sydney time (2 pm in Wellington and 9 am in Singapore) for presentations from Dr. Brooke Nickel and John McMillan, and a lively discussion. The event features two presentations from our speakers (details below). The webinar will run for one hour, but we’ll keep the meeting room open for another half hour afterwards, for people who want to chat further about the issues raised. Hope you can join us!

To register for this event please click here

Find out more and download our event flyer here.

Meet the Speakers:

Talk Title: Misleading medical marketing on social media

Description: This timely talk will showcase recently published and planned research on how social media is relevant to the problems of overdiagnosis and/or overuse, and how we might best respond or regulate to reduce misleading medical marketing.

io: Dr Brooke Nickel (BSc Hons, MIPH, PhD) is a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) Emerging Leader Research Fellow in The University of Sydney School of Public Health. She is part of the Sydney Health Literacy Lab and Wiser Healthcare Research Collaboration. Her research focuses on evidence-based healthcare communication and decision making; the psychosocial impact of cancer diagnosis and treatment; and overdiagnosis. The work she has led (first/senior author) has been published in high impact international medical journals in the field including The BMJ, The MJA, JAMA and Lancet series and featured in international media including The New York Times, The Guardian, The Conversation and the ABC.

Talk Title: Informed consent and population screening.

Description: Most countries view consent as a precondition of population screening. What’s the value of informed consent to population screening? Is it about ensuring that people are adequately informed prior to deciding to start on a screening pathway?

Bio: John McMillan is a Professor at the Bioethics Centre at the University of Otago and has worked on a range on issues within bioethics. He is the author of The Methods of Bioethics: an Essay in Metabioethics (OUP 2018) and his most recent book is Methodological Issues in Neuroethics: The Case of Responsibility (CUP 2024). He recently completed a seven year term as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Medical Ethics.