Nicole Huberfeld

4 credits

Graduate Prerequisites: SPH PH719 or consent of instructor. - Health law, bioethics, and human rights converge within the field of public health at the national and international levels. This seminar explores the theoretical meaning of this convergence, engages the sources of authority for human rights, and uses case studies to examine how public health advocates can be effective in the realms of social justice and equity. Examples include the U.S. legal and various international standards creating a "right to health;" economic rights and the importance of money in health care; reproductive rights and technologies; standards for medical research and informed consent; and framing the end of life as a public health or a human rights issue.

4 credits

This is a course about who gets what health services, when and how. Policies and laws governing what services are available and on what terms strongly influence health status at both the individual and population levels. This course examines the Constitutional, regulatory, political and socio-economic bases for the policies that determine access, quality, cost and equity in health services and population health programs. While the focus is principally on US examples, the course is structured on the World Health Organization's framework for organizing and analyzing national health systems, covering governance, financing, delivery systems, workforce, and human and other resources. The course combines intensive individual preparation for each class using both written and video materials, interactive class presentations and hands-on individual and group projects in laboratory sessions.

3 credits

Public health seeks to prevent unnecessary illness, injury, and death, which law can either facilitate or thwart. The field is transforming from state programs that prevent disease in populations (e.g., vaccination, newborn screening) to federal and international efforts to broadly recognize a population and individual "right to health." This course explores contemporary examples of public health problems such as disasters and emergencies, firearms regulation, regulating commercial speech to prevent consumer deception, and reproductive health. The course offers a framework for identifying and controlling health risks drawing on principles and theories of law, assessment of risk, policy evaluation, and empirical evidence. We will consider how laws at the state and federal levels regulate personal behaviors and products as well as impact the underlying determinants of health. Students will analyze different legal strategies that can be used to guide public health such as governmental nudges through funding, criminal and civil prohibitions, data collection and privacy, marketing restrictions, and taxation. GRADING NOTICE: This course does not offer the CR/NC/H option.