Page 29 - Prioridades en salud y salud intercultural

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Introduction
Though bioethics discussions may
be traced back several millennia, the
modern era of bioethics emerged in
the second half of the 20th century
and focused almost exclusively and
narrowly on the one-OIT-one re-
lationship between researcher and
subject or physician and patient.
As the 21st century emerged, bio-
ethicists widened their viewpoint to
encompass ethical issues related to
groups, entire populations and even
health systems. Nowhere is this
more apparent than in two key ar-
eas: the intersections of i) bioethics
and public health, and ii) bioethics
and health policy. Public health eth-
ics is only now beginning to creep
forward slowly but steadily, pro-
AT THE INTERSECTION OF BIOETHICS
AND HEALTH POLICY1
Douglas K. Martin
pelled by concerns about the ethics
of pandemic influenza preparations.
But, bioethicists conducting health
policy research are proceeding full-
speed ahead.
In particular, significant bioeth-
ics scholarship has been brought
to bear on the difficult problem of
priority setting. Priority setting has
emerged as arguably the key health
policy concern of health policy
makers everywhere and, at its core,
it is fundamentally the ethics of pri-
ority setting that makes it so con-
tentious and difficult.
Priority Setting: At the
Intersection of Bioethics
and Health Policy
Priority setting, the distribution of
resources among competing de-
mands, in the health system is the
1 A Discussion Paper in Preparation for
the 11th World Congress on Public
Health Rio de Janeiro, 2006.