| Summary: | Ethical principles and guidelines are essential for the practice of public health. With many developing countries rapidly expanding the scope of public health interventions, there is a need to incorporate public health ethics in their health systems. Public health is characterized by the values of common good, respect, solidarity, utility, trust and long term self interest of communities. The field of public health easily lends itself to the utilitarian, communitarian and Kantian deontological theoretical concepts. There are eight popular guidelines in the field of public health ethics. These frameworks are discussed in brief in this paper. Certain unique socio-cultural dimensions of health in developing countries lead to an immediate need for a comprehensive set of ethical guidelines for public health interventions.
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