For the Public's Health Revitalizing Law and Policy to Meet New Challenges (2011) / Chapter Skim
Currently Skimming:
1 Introduction: Why Law and Why Now?
1 Introduction: Why Law and Why Now?
Pages 13-26
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From page 13... ...
This report represents the committee's response to its second task, which was to do the following: Review how statutes and regulations prevent injury and disease, save lives, and optimize health outcomes. The committee will systematically discuss legal and regulatory authority; note past efforts to develop model public health legisla tion; and describe the implications of the changing social and policy context for public health laws and regulations.
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From page 14... ...
The committee's charge specifies the review of laws and regulations, but the committee interpreted its charge broadly to include public policy in general. This is consistent with discussions of public health law in conjunction with policy elsewhere, including in the work of the Center for Health Law, Policy and Practice at Temple University and of Public Health Law and Policy, a California non-profit organization that provides tools and technical assistance to public health officials, communities, and advocates.
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From page 15... ...
This term refers to the broad arena of positions, principles, and priorities that inform high-level decision making in all branches of government, but is often used to refer collectively to laws, regulations and rules, executive agency strategic plans, executive agency guidance documents, executive orders, judicial decisions and precedents. Many public policies are not laws, but may have help change norms and behaviors in health.
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From page 16... ...
Conversely, the absence of specific legislative power does not mean that government cannot act given that it possesses other public policy tools such as issuing guidance and implementing executive orders. In the public sector, policy-based interventions may include health promotion such as social marketing campaigns, and awards or similar incentives for private sector policy changes.
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From page 17... ...
. The present report addresses laws and public policy as they pertain to public health practice in both its institutional and programmatic aspects, and it also examines laws and public policy -- and to a limited extent, policy in the private sector -- as they pertain to population health more broadly.
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From page 18... ...
potential health impacts of policies, adopting policies with the secondary goal of improving health Community (including Advocating for healthier community environments in individuals and families, interactions with legislators, government executives, and organizations, faith groups) private sector the different and sometimes conflicting sets of values and public norms that inform the availability, use, and acceptance of laws and public policy to improve public health.
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From page 19... ...
Public health practitioners are working to employ legal or policy tools to influence physical activity, nutrition, and other behaviors by making the environment in which these occur more conducive to health-enhancing choices. Many determinants of health are not under the direct influence of public health agencies; thus action in those areas involves a variety of sectors, either catalyzed by public health's convening role or, as is sometimes the case, by health-oriented initiatives of other actors in those sectors.
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From page 20... ...
. As the scientific understanding of the determinants of health evolves, public health professionals continue to gain insights on how the social, built, and natural environments influence health.
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From page 21... ...
Public health practitioners have a long and rich history of engaging with other sectors and disciplines to address health challenges outside explicitly health-oriented domains. That was certainly the case in the 18th and 19th centuries, when early public health practices were developed to address industrial and occupational threats to health.
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From page 22... ...
b Other conditions at national level might include major sociopolitical shifts, such as recession, war, and government collapse. The built environment includes transportation, water and sanitation, housing, and other dimensions of urban planning.
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From page 23... ...
This presents challenges both for establishing what interventions are most effective and for compelling pertinent parties to act. The conceptual and statutory relationship to public health practice -- and thus, for undertaking legal or policy interventions -- is more complicated to explain and trace as one moves from the inner circles of the figure, from genetic factors and individual behaviors to the outer circles, which denote broad, high-level policies related to characteristics such as education and income.
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From page 24... ...
. The mounting evidence about the most distal determinants of health calls for an examination and application of the core values of public health law, including government power and duty, the nature and limits of state power, a focus on population and prevention, community engagement, and fairness (Gostin, 2006)
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From page 25... ...
2010. Mak ing the case for laws that improve health: A framework for public health law research.
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From page 26... ...
2008. Public health education and health promotion.
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