The Ethics and Professional Conduct Committee (CED): The Agency’s Values at the Heart of Daily Operations

Through its opinions and recommendations, the CED enables Santé publique France to enhance ethical reflection in the execution of its missions related to prevention, health promotion, monitoring, surveillance, and investigations. The CED supports the agency’s teams and contributes to the development of ethical practices in public health through awareness-raising and training initiatives.

During the previous 2016–2020 term, the CED was consulted on various topics that intersected ethical, deontological, and scientific integrity considerations with questions regarding the terms of public-private partnerships within the framework of Nutri-Score; the definition of a scientific integrity policy tailored to a public health agency; ethical issues raised during investigations of clustered cases; and the anticipation of ethical questions posed by biomonitoring surveys, linking exposure to substances, risks to human health, and local impact.

The CED consists of seven members appointed for four years. Members of the CED were selected based on the following criteria: expertise in one of the disciplines mentioned in the call for applications (ethics, law, epidemiology, public health, philosophy, humanities and social sciences, prevention and health promotion), or knowledge and expertise in professional ethics, ethics, and scientific integrity; an explicit interest in the CED and the topics it will address; experience participating in ethics committees: National Advisory Committee on Ethics, Advisory Committee on the Processing of Information in Health Research, Committees for the Protection of Persons, ethics committees of public bodies, etc.; publications, reports, or presentations in one of the CED’s two areas of focus (professional conduct and ethics in public health).

Thus, following a public call for applications issued in late 2020, the Board of Directors of Santé publique France appointed seven individuals of varying ages, professional backgrounds, and disciplines.

• Visit the page dedicated to the Ethics and Professional Conduct Committee (CED)

The Steering and Dialogue Committee (COD): Giving Voice to Civil Society

The COD was first established when the agency was created in 2016. This body of health democracy enriches the agency’s work by analyzing its programs and actions from a societal perspective: members from civil society offer their views on the agency’s work based on their positions within society. “The COD reviews the agency’s work program and the resulting actions through this societal lens and contributes, through its proposals, to new directions for the work program and its implementation.”

The COD has four missions: to contribute to the quality and relevance of the agency’s actions by providing its perspective on current and future public health issues and the societal questions they raise; to propose priorities within the agency’s areas of activity and guidelines for its annual work program; to help improve the agency’s communication methods, particularly during health crises, and the conditions for disseminating public health knowledge to different segments of the population; to enable the agency to contribute to public debates on public health issues, notably by presenting available scientific knowledge and, where appropriate, the context of scientific uncertainty within which health decisions must be made.

COD members bring a diversity of perspectives to the agency’s activities, based on their experience in the fields of health, public health, and societal issues stemming from their daily and professional lives (reception, dialogue, debate, communication, research, scientific outreach, and the diverse contexts in which these activities take place—including during health crises—as well as their places of residence and professional practice (metropolitan France, overseas departments, urban and rural areas, etc.), the population groups with whom they interact (youth, older adults, people with disabilities, patients, parents, citizens), their role as an interface with society (volunteer, elected official, parliamentarian, local government employee, scientist, healthcare professional, educator, communicator, journalist, health advocate, social sciences and humanities expert, medical-social worker, etc.), and as citizens.

Sixteen people were selected following a public call for applications and were appointed for a four-year term.

• Visit the page dedicated to the Steering and Dialogue Committee (COD)

“The CED and the COD represent the societal component of the three bodies on which the Agency relies: this forms the foundation of our values and a large part of our identity: ethics, professional conduct, and openness to societal stakeholders. In the Agency’s founding decree, the mission of the COD and the CED is to inform our work and our opinions, thereby helping to strengthen our positioning and the robustness of our work. They are intended to strengthen the ethics and/or social relevance of our expertise and analyses, in part by helping us better take into account principles, questions, and expectations, but also by providing access to the issues, information, and knowledge that can inform our thinking and actions. Their contribution alongside us is essential because our ultimate goal is to foster an environment conducive to the health of all, with a view to supporting decision-making and contributing to public debate. » Geneviève Chêne, Director General of Santé publique France.