CHITAMBO COLLEGE OF NURSING

PHN JANUARY 2023 INTAKE

GROUP ASSIGNMENT

TUTOR’S NAME: MR SIMUBALI H

COURSE TITLE: COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

ASSIGNMENT NO : 01

DATE GIVEN: 16TH FEBRUARY 2025

DUE DATE: 21ST FEBRUARY 2025

QUESTION: ETHICAL CONDUCT AND ASSESING HEALTH IMPACT

GROUP MEMBERS
1. NGOSA NICHOLAS
2. MULENGA ELIZEBETH
3. MUKE SHEBA
4. BUBALA GEORGE
5. CHILESHE JACQUELINE
 INTRODUCTION

• A code of professional conduct is necessary to any profession to maintain standards for

the individuals within that profession to adhere.
• It brings about accountability responsibility and trust to the individual that the profession
serves.
• These ethical and legal issues are meant to protect the human rights of advocates
participants and also to protect the rights of other advocacy

“
 DEFINITION OF TERMS
• Ethical conduct is defined as acting in ways what society and individuals typically think
are good values.
10 criteria for ethical public advocacy
Evaluation
 Objective evaluation of the issue before determining whether it merits advocacy.
Priority
 Once the practitioner has assumed the role of advocacy, the interest of the client or
organization are valued.
Sensitivity
 Balancing of client priority on one hand with social responsibility on the other.
Confidentiality
 Protection of the client or organization rights to confidentiality and secrecy on matters
for which secrets are morally justified.
Veracity
 Full truthfulness in all matters ;deception and evasion can be considered morally
acceptable only under exceptional circumstances when all truthful possibility have been
ruled out.
Reversibility
 If the situation were reversed ,the advocate –client organization would be satisfied that it
had sufficient information to make informed decision.
Visibility
 Clear identification of all communication on behalf of client or organization as
originating from the source.
Respect
 Regard for audiences as autonomous individual with rights to make informed choices and
to have informed participation in decision that affect them
Consent
 Communication on behalf the client or organization is carried out only under condition to
which it can be assumed by all parties.
Validity
 All communication on behalf of client or organization are defensible against attacks on
their validity (accuracy, supported, backed-up)

Principles of the Ethical

Practice of Public Health
 Public health should address principally the fundamental causes of disease and
requirements for health, aiming to prevent adverse health outcomes.
 Public health should achieve community health in a way that respects the rights of
individuals in the community.
 Public health policies, programs, and priorities should be developed and evaluated
through processes that ensure an opportunity for input from community members.
 Public health institutions should provide communities with the information they have that
is needed for decisions on policies or programs and should obtain the community’s
consent for their implementation.
 Public health should advocate and work for the empowerment of disenfranchised
community members, aiming to ensure that the basic resources and conditions necessary
for health are accessible to all.
 Public health should seek the information needed to implement effective policies and
programs that protect and promote health.
 Public health institutions should act in a timely manner on the information they have
within the resources and the mandate given to them by the public.
 Public health programs and policies should incorporate a variety of approaches that
anticipate and respect diverse values, beliefs, and cultures in the community
 Public health programs and policies should be implemented in a manner that most
enhances the physical and social environment.
 Public health institutions should protect the confidentiality of information that can bring
harm to an individual or community if made public. Exceptions must be justified on the
basis of the high likelihood of significant harm to the individual or others..
 Public health institutions should ensure the professional competence of their employees.
 Public health institutions and their employees should engage in collaborations and
affiliations in ways that build the public’s trust and the institution’s effectiveness
Ethical conduct
 The basic value of public health is to protect and promote the health and physical well-
being of, as well as to prevent injury and disease in, whole populations.
  It is, therefore, concerned with the fundamental conditions that affect entire communities.
 It aims to avoid, prevent, and remove harms; produce maximal benefits for the
community; and distribute burdens and benefits fairly.
Ethical conduct (values)
Advocacy values
 The population health focus of public health makes the distribution of health and health
inequalities across individuals and groups a central concern of the field
 An important value of public health is therefore to advocate for disenfranchised,
underserved, and vulnerable populations.
 Accordingly, programs and priorities should ensure an opportunity for all individuals in a
community to have a voice, articulate the implications of policies for vulnerable
populations, respect the diverse values, beliefs and cultures in a community, and provide
a fair distribution of public health resources
Professional values
 Another important value of public health is respect for the rights of individuals in the
community, including the rights to privacy, confidentiality, and autonomy.
 The rights of individuals can sometimes conflict with the basic values of public health.
 Reaching a reasonable balance of values is often difficult and frequently case-specific.
 In each case, however, we should strive to identify the intervention that is least restrictive
while consistent with the public's health.
Trust and Honesty
 To protect the integrity of public Health advocacy, we must uphold the public's trust in
all of our professional interactions.
 An advocate is therefore committed to honest, accurate, and timely professional and
organizational communication and to avoid misleading or deceptive information
Teamwork
 Professionals in advocacy are committed to continuous organizational improvement
focused on satisfying stakeholder and client expectations, problem-solving, and
improving business processes through management-staff teamwork and collaboration
with other community organizations.
 ASSESING HEALTH IMPACT
 Health impact assessment (HIA) is defined as "a combination of procedures, methods,
and tools by which a policy, program, or project may be judged as to its potential effects
on the health of the population and the distribution of those effects within the
population."
 Health Impact Assessment (HIA) is a means of assessing the health impacts (influence)
of policies, plans and projects in diverse economic sectors using quantitative, qualitative
and participatory techniques.
OBJRCTIVES OF HEALTHIMPACT ASSESMENT
Health impact assesment seeks the quality of policy decision by evaluating the likely positive
and negative health impacts from proposed programmes or policies and making
recommendations to improve health impacts and mitigate negative ones.
Health impact assessment stresses the participation of public stakeholders and provides for a
social model of health and well being in which there is an explicit focus on equity, sustainability
and commitment to openness and public scrutiny.
Key Characteristics
 Predicting the consequences of project-related actions
 Providing information that can help decision makers prioritize prevention and control
strategies throughout the project cycle
Health Impact Assessment Process
 The essential elements of the HIA process (Quigley 2006) typically include the
following:
Screening
 preliminary evaluation to determine whether a proposed project is likely to pose any
significant health questions.
 Specialists should generally assume that projects requiring environmental or social
impact assessments are also likely to have potential health impacts.
 During the screening step, the need for an HIA can be determined.
Scooping
 A process for outlining the range and types of hazards and beneficial impacts.
 The overall types and categories of questions that should be addressed are defined at this
stage of the HIA.
  During scooping, an advocate must identify vulnerable populations and consider impacts
the proposed project would have on those groups
 The input of key stakeholders and the relevant host-country health authorities is critical,
so that the HIA adequately addresses a realistic range of health concerns.
 This stage also is the time to develop the TOR(terms of reference) for the scoping.
 The HIA effort should be “fit to purpose,” and it should adequately and realistically
match the complexity of the project.
Risk Assessment
 Includes the key set of activities to investigate, appraise, and qualitatively or
quantitatively rank the impacts the project is likely to have, on the health of the defined
communities.
 The spectrum of potential impacts—their relative importance and at what level they are
expected to occur—is determined in this step.
Health Action Plan
 Considers the rankings developed in the risk assessment and develops a written health
action plan (HAP).
 The HAP, also known as a health management plan, establishes the proposed actions
needed to mitigate identified impacts and promote health opportunities in the project.
 Mitigation is a systematic process by which to avoid, reduce, remedy, or even
compensate for potentially negative impacts.
 Review and analysis by key stakeholders, including host-country health authorities, is
critical.
Implementation and Monitoring
 Occurs after the health action plan is developed.
 At this point it is necessary to decide how the mitigation actions will be implemented and
monitored, and to establish the roles and responsibilities of the companies and key
stakeholders
 During this process, the project should establish action frameworks and allocation of
resources, and it should design monitoring systems to ensure that mitigation progress is
satisfactory.
 The monitoring system should be designed to capture unanticipated effects or provide an
early-warning system to alert that problems are occurring at the community level.
 The monitoring plan should define appropriate key performance indicators.
Evaluation and Verification of Performance and Effectiveness
 A system for determining that implementation has been accomplished and is achieving
the intended goals.

Types of Health impact assessment

Desktop HIA
 Most appropriate for policies or interventions that are expected to have little impact on
health.
 Usually takes a few hours to a few weeks.
 Generally uses existing knowledge and evidence that is being discussed among a small
number of participants.
 Normally no engagement with the community and only and only the most relevant
external stakeholders are consulted.
 If the desktop HIA reveals that there are more health impacts than expected, the desktop
HIA can be seen as a screening exercise to a more extensive HIA.

Rapid HIA
 More extensive and the most common form of HIA
 Appropriate for most policies and interventions
 Takes a few days to a few weeks
 Involves a small steering group, a stake holder workshop and include community
engagement.
 A rapid HIA is expected to include the analysis of the health impact by reviewing
literature and analysing existing data with respect to the expected health effects.
Comprehensive HIA
 A comprehensive HIA includes screening, scooping and stakeholder consultation, risk
assessment, health action plan, implementation and monitoring and verification.
 A comprehensive HIA is more likely to be considered for large, complex projects,
particularly if resettlement or relocation of existing communities is involved or if a
significant influx of persons is expected, regardless of whether it is a new-project or new-
location situation or a significant expansion of an existing facility.
 It is the most extensive form of HIA
 It is different from the two by the collection of new primary data in the field.
Functions of HIA
 Predicting the consequences of different project- related options.
 Providing information required to help prioritize prevention and control strategies
throughout the project cycle serving as a vehicle to engage companies and key
stakeholders in a collaborative decision-making process.
 Identifying the most critical environmental and social determinants of health that may be
affected by the project.
 Addressing health issues that may influence overall sustainability objectives.
 Facilitating intersectional collaboration beyond the health sector and capacity building
with local, regional, and national host-country health resources.
 Enhancing the project “license to operate” in the eyes of local communities and the host
government.
 CONCLUSION

 Health impact assessment is a critical tool for developing evidence-based

recommendations for project decision makers and key stakeholders.
 Health is the responsibility not only of the health sector but also of other relevant sectors
such as engineering, design, construction, community affairs department, local waste-
management service, country road safety department, and local emergency response unit.
 These sectors also can play an important role in prevention, promotion, and mitigation.
 REFERENCES

1. Featherstone B and Fraser C (2012) I’m just a mother. I’m nothing special, they’re all
professionals: Parental advocacy as an aid to parental engagement, Child and Family
Social Work, 17(2), 244-253
2. Finlay S and Sandall J (2009) “Someone’s rooting for you”: Continuity, advocacy and
street-level bureaucracy in UK maternal healthcare, Social Science and Medicine, 69,
12281235.