Bioethics, Health Promotion and Sustainability: Interfaces in Higher Education

What is it about?

Background: Universities are essential institutions for health promotion (HP) [1]. As they have their own ethos and distinct cultures, they may act as potential enhancers of the conceptual frameworks of HP and interdisciplinary values such as equity, social justice and sustainable growth [2]. Bioethics, as a transversal discipline, seeks to ethically analyze and systematize such values, strengthening the synergy between health and sustainability [3]. Bioethics is a reflexive, mutually shared and interdisciplinary tool whose goal is to promote health and sustainability in an integrated and coherent way, adapting life actions in their equitable and inclusive characters.

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Why is it important?

Objectives: 1) Identify how bioethics takes place in daily life and how it is possible to establish links between scientific and ethical knowledge, in order to avoid negative impacts on people's lives; 2) Describe the appropriate bioethical tools (principles) for intervention in the context of higher education (HE), HP and sustainability. Materials and Methods: Doctoral Thesis, using an exploratory-descriptive methodology, and quanti-qualitative approach [4]. Sample: University teachers from Rio Grande do Sul/Brazil, random sample, probabilistic sampling by convenience, CI=95%, n=1400 persons. The research was approved by the Research Ethics Committee of the Hospital de Clínicas of Porto Alegre (HCPA) / Brazil, Ethics Committee of the Universidade Fernando Pessoa (UFP) / Porto-Portugal, receiving the approval number CAAE 55066616.8.0000.5327 / Plataforma Brasil / Brazil. The interviews were carried out after receiving the informed consent from the participants, taking into account the assumptions of the National Health Council Brazil (NHC) 466-2012. Results: for beyond the principialistic formulation - charity, non-maleficence, justice and respect for autonomy [5], subjacent referentials such as solidarity, shared commitment, and health environment/sustainability were evoked, causing a positive impact on HP, individual and collective well-being, quality of life, inclusion and social justice in the University environment. Conclusion: HE upholds a fundamental role in HP for their faculty teachers. Universities act as places for the investigation and learning in a way that it invigorates HP activities [6]. Bioethics, as a transdisciplinary activity, seeks to help building qualified actions in health, which uphold and promote well-being, cohesion, inclusion, sustainability and social justice, with the due conceptual clarity that resides therein [2, 7].