About Ethics
At FACE, we are reframing global health ethics as a pathway to impact and equity, moving beyond strictly academic or procedural assessments to provide pragmatic guidance on ethical approaches to solving complex global health problems.
Our Approach to Ethics
We are working to elevate and embed ethics in day-to-day public health practice through:
Convening
Gathering key stakeholders—from district health officers to industry scientists—to deliberate and co-develop solutions to tough challenges that threaten health equity
Consultation
Providing real-time guidance and support for public health practitioners and programs grappling with ethical questions and considerations
Research
Investigating new areas of ethical inquiry through grounded research methods and fieldwork.
Education & Training
Building capacity and skills among public health practitioners, enabling the workforce to discern how to overcome ethical challenges when they arise.
Ethical Action
We are deepening our understanding of ethical challenges in global health, developing tools and strategies to better support public health practitioners in their day-to-day work, and directly addressing injustice in global health.
Challenges such as:
Ethics Webinar Series
In 2023, we launched an Ethics Lunch and Learn Series at the Task Force for Global Health to spark discourse and awareness through the examination of provocative ethical questions and dilemmas in global health.
Click on our reports to learn more about important and evolving topics in global health ethics.
Stigma in Global Health
In our inaugural Lunch & Learn, we focused on stigma as a key ethical challenge in global health. Our colleagues at the Global Partnership for Zero Leprosy and Compassionate Atlanta shared their experiences with addressing stigma.
Evolving Partnerships
This Ethics Lunch & Learn is the first of a new four-part series on the core values of the Task Force.
In this session, we discussed the evolving nature of partnerships and our responsibility to respond to shifting needs and expectations. Colleagues from several Task Force programs shared their experiences, perspectives, and questions while exploring various themes including equity, sustainability, capacity exchange, shared commitments, and decolonization.
Recent Publications
The need for greater attention to ethical reasoning in global health programming: Insights from global health program leaders’ experiences of moral ambiguity (Coming Soon)
Grek M, Graham AL, Addiss DG, Lavery JV.
Cascading failures in COVID-19 vaccine equity (Science Magazine, 2023)
Lavery JV, Porter RM, Addiss DG.
“Ethics and Global Health Security,” Modernizing Global Health Security to Prevent, Detect, and Respond (Elsevier, 2023)
Kebede S, DeTora LM, Ekmekci PE, Wassie TA, Baer C, Addiss D, Crawley FP, Bierer BE.
Ethical challenges and moral distress among field epidemiologists (BMJ Public Health, 2022)
Emma Cooke, George Lopez, Angela Hilmers & David G. Addiss.
