Public Health Law Research and Practice

Catalog description

Public health law research is the "scientific study of the relation of law and legal practices to population health" (Wagenaar & Burris, 2013, p.4). This course is concerned not with what is legal to include within the jurisdiction of public health law (the objective of health law), but with whether law can empirically be shown to affect the health of a population. This course is for M.P.H., Dr.P.H., Ph.D., and J.D. students who want to develop knowledge and skills in a distinct and trans-disciplinary field that combines both law and scientific methods. This course will be highly interactive and will give students an overview of the general concepts of the field of public health law research, the processes or mechanisms through which a law manages to have measurable effects on people's health, and the various study designs for evaluating public health laws.