Ethics and health promotion: research, theory, policy and practice.

Abstract

This special issue of the HPJA deals with ethics and health promotion. The accompanying editorial focuses particularly on Human Research Ethics Committee (HREC) approval for health promotion research, evaluation and quality assurance (QA), based on the first three papers in this issue. In this brief editorial, we introduce the remaining papers, noting some common threads that are woven through the papers. Ethics is concerned with two sorts of questions. First: What is the right or good thing to do in a given situation? Or, what would a good person do in this situation? Second: Why is that course of action right? Or, what is it about that person or practice that makes it good? As this special issue makes plain, discerning the right and good is often difficult; it is a sphere laden with tension and challenge. Health promotion practitioners will be especially aware of the importance of ethical sensitivity when working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities. Several papers in this issue address this health promotion challenge specifically.