Dampening the flames turmoil: International perspectives on sources of moral harms and their implications for health policy and practice

Background: Public health is tasked with preventing harm, promoting health and ensuring equitable access to care. Yet, increasing sociopolitical and economic turmoil is creating barriers to public health delivering its core roles. Whilst moral dilemmas are inherent in public health polycrises and their resultant ongoing impacts has thrust consideration of the moral harms that may be experienced when we are prevented in the delivery of care into discourses about the future priorities of public health. Experiencing moral harms can result in profound impacts for the individual and the delivery and outcomes of care and are emerging as a public health concern. At a time when public health and healthcare are facing interconnected challenges in funding, workforce attrition, erosions in public trust and quality, it is critical we identify the pertinent drivers of moral harms.

Methods: This commentary explores five different perspectives representing varied geographical locations and health infrastructures.

Results: Specifically, we explore the critical roles of economic status, social anthropological considerations, fiscal, organisational and individual factors to outline key drivers to formulate public health policy responses, going forward.

Conclusions: Addressing the moral harms is a public health imperative and associated solutions have a critical role to play in dampening the flames of current turmoil.