Item Details

title

Adopting a Public Health Approach to Study Suicide & Suicide Prevention in the United States

author

Chopra, Krishna

abstract

The goal of public health is to promote the health and wellbeing of a population. Public health professionals have an ethical duty to promote overall community health in a way that still respects the rights and liberties of individuals without directly placing them at risk for negative health outcomes. There are many health issues that present as threats to different populations around the world, and the ways through which they are dealt with are often specific to the communities in which they occur. In the United States, suicide poses a significant threat to public health, though it fails to be considered as a public health problem. The goal of this thesis is to recognize that public health professionals have an ethical duty to consider suicide as a public health problem and advocate for the development and implementation of suicide prevention policies and programs that take into account the range of ethical considerations and obligations that are relevant and necessary to achieve overall population health. Additionally, once suicide prevention programs have been implemented, public health officials have a duty to continue to assess such programs for safety and efficacy across the population and make changes where they and the rest of the community see fit. Suicide prevention has typically taken on a very individualistic approach, but given that it is a public health issue, it follows that suicide prevention should take on a collaborative and communal model to promote better health outcomes.

subject

bioethics

health

prevention

public

suicide

contributor

Iltis, Ana (committee chair)

King, Nancy (committee member)

Waugh, Christian (committee member)

date

2021-06-03T08:36:09Z (accessioned)

2021-06-03T08:36:09Z (available)

2021 (issued)

degree

Bioethics (discipline)

identifier

http://hdl.handle.net/10339/98813 (uri)

language

en (iso)

publisher

Wake Forest University

type

Thesis