ABSTRACT
Concern about the social and ethical implications of health care practices and biomedical advances is everywhere. Bioethical issues must include the topics and perspectives that are typically relegated to discussions of public health, health economics, social policy, and the law. In turn, those social issues must be enriched by the understandings and discussions typically conducted by bioethics. Bioethicists use ethical theories and principles as tools to help them identify and resolve ethical dilemmas. In order to be persuasive, any theory of justice needs to provide a theoretical foundation on which to build and support its theory. Contemporary public health traces its roots to the sanitarian movement of the early and mid-nineteenth century. Public health's focus on populations is undoubtedly its most defining feature and the one that distinguishes the field from most other health care professions. Public health's focus on populations and its reliance on empirical data have much to offer bioethics.
