title: Public health accreditation and metrics for ethics:  a case study on environmental health and community engagement.
abstract: As public health departments around the country undergo accreditation using the Public Health Accreditation Board standards, the process provides a new opportunity to integrate ethics metrics into day-to-day public health practice. While the accreditation standards do not explicitly address ethics, ethical tools and considerations can enrich the accreditation process by helping health departments and their communities understand what ethical principles underlie the accreditation standards and how to use metrics based on these ethical principles to support decision making in public health practice. We provide a crosswalk between a public health essential service, Public Health Accreditation Board community engagement domain standards, and the relevant ethical principles in the Public Health Code of Ethics (Code). A case study illustrates how the accreditation standards and the ethical principles in the Code together can enhance the practice of engaging the community in decision making in the local health department.
authors.affiliation: Department of Public Health Sciences, School of Medicine, Institute for Practical Ethics and Public Life, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA.
authors.forename: Ruth Gaare
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Bernheim
authors.forename: Matthew
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Stefanak
authors.forename: Terry
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Brandenburg
authors.forename: Aaron
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Pannone
authors.forename: Alan
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Melnick
mesh_terms: D000068:Accreditation; D003256:Community Participation / Q000379:methods*; D004782:Environmental Health; D006077:Government Agencies / Q000941:ethics / Q000592:standards*; D006801:Humans; D057766:Policy; D011635:Public Health Administration / Q000941:ethics* / Q000592:standards*