Public Health Law & Ethics

Catalog description

Law has played an indispensable role in the promotion of population health over the last hundred years. Legal interventions represent some of the most popular tools for increasing the quality and length of life. Law also plays an important role in structuring the delivery of health services including but not limited to the financing and regulation of health professionals working within hospitals and out in the community. This course introduces legal, ethical, and political concepts essential to the use of law and legal reform in promoting public health. Using current examples, the course introduces the authority of government to act, the limits on government action, and the legal and ethical implications when that authority and those limits collide. While exploring the tension between individual liberty and community health, it introduces the distinction between government action and inaction, the distribution of power and responsibility between levels and branches of government, and principles like consent. The course combines lecture, interactive class exercises, and group discussion.