Law Commons^™

The Merger Between Public Health And Health Law – The Us Situation, Wendy K. Mariner

Faculty Scholarship

Law is an essential tool for protecting the public’s health. It is often the law that turns public health science into public health action. Sanitation, clean air and water, universal vaccination, injury prevention, tobacco control, drug policy, and a vast array of other interventions are achieved through a complex web of local, provincial and national statutes, regulations and judicial cases. The Institute of Medicine in the United States defines public health as “what we, as a society, do collectively to ensure the conditions in which people can be healthy.” And society acts collectively most often through law.

Thus, the merging …