A Practical Guide to Creating Public Health Codes of Ethics

Background: Codes of conduct are a vital lever of the public health workforce professionalization in Europe. The absence of genuine Public Health Codes of Ethics (PHCOE) hampers full professionalization, leading practitioners to conduct that does not reflect public health norms and values. Methods: A scoping review embedded in Constructivist Grounded Theory searched the PubMed, Web of Science and EMBASE data bases and websites of professional organizations, public health institutions and public health governance bodies for norms, values, duties and principles to develop a theoretical model on the creation of public health codes of conduct. Results: Three studies and 25 PHCOEs have been included. The codes overlap in respect, honesty, accountability, responsibility, collaboration and flexibility. Values that are crucial to public health practice including justice, equity, public trust, common good, cultural awareness, social progress and stewardship were less well-represented. The theory which emerged from the data includes ethical considerations, purposes and benefits, themes, content and barriers. Conclusion: We have proposed a prototype for a PHCOE that can be used by public health institutions and organizations to create codes of conduct. We urge stakeholders to raise awareness on the importance of empowering the workforce to excel at their responsibilities by investing in development and adoption of ethical guidance and training.