Responsibility for Health

This Element provides a new overarching perspective on responsibility for health, covering public health, healthcare policies, and clinical medicine.

Sven Ove Hansson (Author)

9781009247276, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 11 August 2022

75 pages
22.8 x 15.2 x 0.4 cm, 0.12 kg

This Element offers a broad perspective on responsibility for health. This includes responsibilities in the prevention of disease and accidents, and in the creation of healthcare for all. The professional responsibilities of physicians and nurses are explored, and so are the responsibilities that we all have for our own health. Many of the central problems in healthcare ethics are discussed from a responsibility perspective, for instance paternalism, informed consent, evidence-based medicine, alternative medicine, and the use of artificial intelligence in healthcare. In order to perform this analysis, conceptual tools for responsibility analysis are provided, such as the distinction between blame responsibility and task responsibility and various notions of causality that are relevant for our understanding of responsibility.

1. Introduction
2. What is Responsibility?
3. What Determines Our Health?
4. The Ethics of Public Health
5. Health Care for All
6. Responsibility in Health Care
7. Responsibility for One's Own Health
8. Conclusion
Notes
References.

Subject Areas: Bio-ethics [PSAD], Public health & preventive medicine [MBN], Medical ethics & professional conduct [MBDC]