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Basic Ethical Principles in Epidemiology

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Basic Ethical Principles
The three basic ethical principles generally accepted principles in the U.S. cultural tradition include the principles of respect for persons, beneficence, and justice. The principles of respect for persons ensure that human subjects treated as autonomous agents and persons with diminished autonomy are provided protection (CDC, n.a.). The protection relates to when human subjects may lack coherence under certain medications, sickness, or physical conditions in which the researcher acts on good faith to choose considerable judgments on the human subjects’ behalf. Human subjects obtain the right to be fully informed of the activities he or she must participate prior to beginning the experimentations.
The beneficence, also considered “obligation,” ensures that human subjects obtain awareness of potential exposures to risks and the researchers must provide maximization of benefits and reduction of risks during the course of the research investigation (CDC, n.a.). The third basic ethical principle, justice, involves equality of intentions, merits, and morality when distributing burdens and benefits. The formulation includes equal shares between each person, assessing individual needs, assessing individual efforts, each person’s societal contribution, and each person’s merit (CDC, n.a.).
Applications
Applications of general principles for conduct of research conclude informed consent, risk benefit assessment, and the selection of subjects of research.

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