“Analytical frameworks” and “practical tools” referring extensively to values and principles have been developed since the 1990’s to provide guidance for public health decision makers and practitioners in ethical reasoning.

This study aimed at identifying the values and principles in public health ethics “frameworks” and “tools”, at classifying them by theme, and at characterizing them by questioning their meanings and articulations.

We conducted a systematic review according to PRISMA-S guidelines. It used 3 databases and gathered documents published during the last thirty years. This corpus was analyzed following a multidisciplinarily defined interpretive framework.

We included 51 publications. More than a half was issued by North American organizations and 7 by European organizations. We identified 110 values and 153 principles referring to the themes of justice, autonomy, beneficence and non-maleficence, governance and evaluation of actions.

There are likely other unpublished frameworks and tools used by public health actors and decision makers.

Although the most cited values and principles appear to correspond to several fundamental characteristics of public health, it is still early to talk about an ethics specific to public health.