Research and public health ethics
In late 2000, not long after becoming a federal employee, I learned about human research protections and institutional review boards (IRB). I joined a CDC IRB in 2001 and started on a journey to figure out what role statistics in general, and statisticians in particular, should play in protecting the rights and welfare of research participants. As I read the literature on analytic uncertainty in clinical research, I discerned that ethics calls for more than intuition; it demands its own form of analytic rigor. I was especially moved by the work of the Clinton-era National Bioethics Advisory Commission and specific contributions by Charles Weijer on justification of research risks. I met Charles in Nova Scotia in 2002 and bonded with him as a mentor over the next several years, with special attention to monitoring research risks in clinical trials. In late 2003, I wrote on my dry-erase board my twin aspirations to become CDC’s point person on methodology and ethics in clinical trials and to position my work on par with academic achievement.
While I continued careful work in research ethics, I also branched out into public health ethics. My first first-author manuscript traced the intellectual history of so-called individual and collective ethics through the lens of clinical research. Turning toward public health, my colleagues and I asked about what role justice plays, for example, in surveillance as contrasted with clinical trials. What about personal autonomy and free and informed consent?
14 works filed here — presentation 10 · publication 4. 4 prepared, none published on this site yet.
Within the domain: ethics-pub-hlth Public health ethics · ethics-research Research ethics.
All 4 citable works filed here are in the works index.
In this domain
| year | form | subdomain | work |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2005 | publication | ethics-research |
pu_2005_heilig_individual-collective-ethics — A critical history of individual and collective ethics in the lineage of Lellouch and Schwartz |
| 2010 | publication | ethics-pub-hlth |
pu_2010_heilig_ethics-surveillance — Ethics in public health surveillance |
| 2012 | publication | ethics-pub-hlth |
pu_2012_lee_surveillance-ethics-consent — Ethical justification for conducting public health surveillance without patient consent |
| 2013 | publication | ethics-research |
pu_2013_hey_aero-model — Accumulating Evidence and Research Organization (AERO) model: a new tool for representing, analyzing, and planning a translational research program |
10 further works are filed here without a render — not cite-only, simply not yet prepared.
Crossings
No crossings recorded in either direction.
Cited, not served
Nothing in this domain is cite-only.
Hooks
3 of the 36 closed hooks sit on work filed here — Chad’s own first person, published as written.
pu_2005_heilig_individual-collective-ethics · tier full · ready
I led this work from beginning to end, guided and joined by Charles Weijer. This work was an argument against treating ethics as reducible to a quantified calculus.
pu_2010_heilig_ethics-surveillance · tier full · ready
I co-wrote this chapter with another colleague in HIV at the invitation of Lisa M Lee, an editor of the collected volume. Rather than argue from prior principles, we structured the chapter to discern those principles traced over an arc of developed model legislation.
pu_2012_lee_surveillance-ethics-consent · tier full · ready
My colleague, Lisa M Lee, and I wrote this with Angie White, then a philosophy of science graduate student. On the CDC side, we were trying to lay a rigorous foundation for public health ethics. On the philosophy side, we hoped to contribute to applications of justice as an ethic of duty.