CRN09  Law and Health

Organizers

Leslie Francis, Dorit Reiss, Allison Whelan

The CRN serves as a networking and collaborative research site for legal scholars working in the fields of health law, public health, health care, human rights and health, medical sociology, medical anthropology, disability studies, health politics, and critical fields related to health and embodiment. Focal areas for dialogue, planned events, prospective grant-writing collaborations and publications include:

• International and comparative analysis of laws governing global and nation-state relationships to population health. Areas of study may include, but are not limited to health systems, social welfare policy, environmental health law and policy, warfare and post-colonialism, human rights law and policy, economic development law and policy, and health emergencies and disease spread.
• Critical perspectives on health disparities and inequities, subordination and law: Incorporating feminist, critical race, social epidemiological and critical disability theoretical perspectives on the distribution and socio-legal response to illness, impairment, and injury.
• Bio-engineering, genetics, medicine, and law: Areas of interest include repro-genetics, genetic discrimination law and policy, medical ethics and law, medical testimony and the role of science in courts, and regulation of genetic engineering
• Law and health systems: Areas of concentration include health-care policy, torts and malpractice law, health-care discrimination, social welfare systems, public health systems and services, and health-care reform
• Law and health outcomes: Incorporating attention to health outcomes associated with law and policy, inclusive both of law and policy explicitly attentive to public health, and to “incidental” health outcomes associated with any area of law that may have an impact on population or communal health. Attention to health outcomes specific to vulnerable or subordinated populations is particularly welcome.
• Health governance and politics: areas of focus includes how politics and governance affect access to health, health policies, and health outcomes. While these topics overlap with Law and Health Systems and Law and Health Outcomes, they are broader.
• Social movements, law and health: this includes how social movements interact with the law to affect health policies and outcomes.