Global Health Ethics

This course will examine foundational normative problems and pragmatic ethical challenges facing those who work in some capacity to improve health outcomes for very poor populations living under conditions of severe resource scarcity. We will interrogate basic conceptual ideas such as “what do we mean by ‘global health equity’?” and the nature and root sources of “resource scarcity”, in addition to focusing on specific practical concerns such as 1) how to conduct ethical responsible research on and with socially and economically disadvantaged and vulnerable populations, 2) macro-economic and micro-bedside resource allocation dilemmas, and 3) health care worker “brain drain” from poor to rich locales.