Public Health

The University is currently engaged in public health planning for both short term and long term emergencies.  Short term planning includes outbreaks of illnesses such as Noro-virus and Meningitis.  Long term planning includes Pandemic Influenza.

Both types of planning will use the following five ethical principals as the basis for decision making. 

  Five Ethical Principles:

1. Need for Protection: While there is a need or duty to take steps to protect the community generally (see Utilitarianism below), there is also the need or duty to protect those that incur risk for the benefit of the community; to protect vulnerable populations within the community; and to protect individuals and their rights and freedoms.
2. Openness: Decisions should be made in an open, transparent and fully accountable manner. Decision-makers should provide information on how decisions are being made, and on what basis decisions have been made, as much as is reasonably possible. The University community (and, where impacted, the broader community) should be kept informed, and decision-makers should be open to revisiting and revising policies as new information arises.
3. Fairness: Decision-making and priority setting must be made fairly in consultation with stakeholders. Fairness includes principles of justice and the obligation to ensure that benefits and burdens of decision-making are distributed fairly. It also includes procedural fairness and an obligation to provide procedural protections to those whose rights or liberties are restricted in an attempt to protect the health and well-being of the community.
4. Least Restrictive / Proportionate: In the process of decision making, if there is more than one option that will achieve a particular aim, the least restrictive alternative or intervention should be chosen. That does not mean that decision-makers must choose the least restrictive means if it is thought that it would lack needed effectiveness in a given situation. Rather, the choice must be that decisions may need to be made in the context of a lack of evidence or information. Decision-making may be made on a precautionary basis rather than on a evidence-based model where necessary.
5. Utilitarianism: Decisions will be made with an aim to benefit the greatest number of people as possible within the community. This flows from the value the University places on community, service, and citizenship, and its vision to "inspire citizenship in a creative community... for the public good." This pertains to both the University community and, where applicable, to the larger community as a whole.