Use a Case Bank to Understand Public Health Policies and Their Ethical Issues

Abstract

This article explores the use of case databases to support the development of competence in analyzing ethical issues and the public policy process in a public health learning context. A brief synthesis of the literature highlights the relevance of case studies for acquiring empirical knowledge or developing critical analysis skills. However, this synthesis did not identify any analyses of the use of case sets, such as case databases. To fill this gap, the article presents PolÉthicas, a collection of case studies describing ethical issues and the public health policy development process in Canada, and its user guide. The latter is based on the arguments and methods identified in the literature review, as well as on the cross-analysis of several cases dealing with related themes and structured in a similar way. The PolÉthicas case bank and its user guide enable us to reflect on the theoretical and empirical dimensions of collective public health choices in the development of public policies, based on a number of cases, and to question the values at stake in the development and implementation of public policies, the actors involved and their interactions, and the context in which these processes take place.