Ethics of Preparedness

The Yale Center for Public Health Preparedness and Yale University's Interdisciplinary Center for Bioethics is collaborating on a project that addresses ethical issues in disaster preparedness. Currently, there are six workgroups:

• Communications: risk and crisis communication, media relations, public education, and public trust;
• Constraints on Liberty: surveillance, isolation and quarantine, travel restrictions, closures of public places, evacuations;
• Ecological/Environmental Issues: management of carriers of zoonotic disease, environmental impact of preparedness and mitigation;
• Preparing for the Care of the Elderly and Disabled, and Disadvantaged Populations: cultural issues, priorities for evacuation and care, caregiver responsibility, autonomy;
• Resource Allocation: prioritization of resource allocation (facilities, medicines, vaccines, personnel, food, water, shelter) during a disaster, distribution of resources, resource equity;
• Workforce: workforce responsibilities, commitment and response, professionalism in response, employer mandates and responsibilities.