Which Values Should Guide Evidence-Based Practice?
This article draws on opinions in the AMA Code of Medical Ethics and applies them to evidence-based practice.
AMA Journal of Ethics
What Should Health Professions Students Learn About Data Bias?
In epidemiology, bias is defined as systematic deviation from the truth, and it can arise at different stages of scientific investigation (eg, data collection, methodological application, and outcomes analysis). Epidemiological bias can appear as a consequence of data bias (usually…
How Should Epidemiologists Respond to Data Genocide?
Data quality for and about American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) people is undermined by deeply entrenched, colonial practices that have become standard in US federal data systems. This article draws on cases of maternal mortality and COVID-19 to demonstrate the ethical…
Ethics Talk: Underrecognized Origins of Epidemiology
This activity is comprised of five multiple-choice questions based on the content of an AMA Journal of Ethics podcast about therapeutic music and peace in health care. The featured guests are James Downs, PhD, the Gilder Lehrman-National Endowment for the…
2024 Ethics Symposium: Harm Reduction and Opioid Use Disorder
The AMA Journal of Ethics presents the 2024 Ethics Symposium: Harm Reduction and Opioid Use Disorder. Two speakers today share their insights on state of the art in clinical, public health, and forensic approaches to harm reduction. Speakers are Dr…
Lessons From the Political History of Epidemiology for Divisive Times
Historical precursors of the field we now call epidemiology date back to Hippocrates. Modern epidemiological science, however, developed as domestic and international infectious disease transmission accompanied industrialization, some nations’ economic growth, and colonial powers’ military expansion and dominance. This article…
How Should the Use of Opioids Be Regulated to Motivate Better Clinical Practice?
This article describes historical and political reasons for and devastating consequences of US opioid prescribing policy since the 1990s, which has restricted opioid prescribing for pain less than for treating opioid use disorder (OUD) treatment. This article considers merits and…
What Would Equitable Harm Reduction Look Like?
Structural determinants of health frameworks must express anti-racism to be effective, but racial and ethnic inequities are widely documented, even in harm reduction programs that focus on person-centered interventions. Harm reduction strategies should express social justice and health equity, resist…
How Should Risks and Benefits of Short-Acting Opioids Be Evaluated in the Care of Inpatients With OUD?
Severe opioid withdrawal, risk of patient-initiated discharge, and some inpatients’ use of unregulated substances prompt clinical and ethical questions considered in this commentary on a case. Short-acting opioids can be used to manage inpatients’ pain and opioid use disorder (OUD)…
How Should Harm Reduction Be Included in Care Continua for Patients With Opioid Use Disorder?
Practices and interventions that aim to slow progression or reduce negative consequences of substance use are harm reduction strategies. Often described as a form of tertiary prevention, harm reduction is key to caring well for people who use drugs. Evidence-based…
