Public Health Law

Lawrence O. Gostin’s seminal Public Health Law is widely acclaimed as the definitive statement on public health law at the turn of the twenty-first century. In this bold third edition, Gostin is joined by Lindsay F. Wiley to analyze major health threats of our time such as chronic diseases, emerging infectious diseases, antimicrobial resistance, bioterrorism, natural disasters, opiod overdose, and gun violence. The authors draw on constitutional law, administrative law, local government law, and tort law to develop their conception of law as a tool for protecting the public’s health. 
 
The book creates an intellectual framework for modern public health law and supports that framework with illustrations of the scientific, political, and ethical issues involved. In proposing innovative solutions for the future of the public’s health, Gostin and Wiley’s essential study provides a blueprint for public and political debates to come.

New issues covered in this edition:

• Corporate personhood rights raised in response to regulations of tobacco, food and beverages, alcohol, firearms, prescription drugs, and marijuana.
• Local government authority to protect the public’s health.
• Deregulation and harm reduction as modes of public health law intervention.
• Taxation, spending, and alteration of the socioeconomic environment as modes of public health law intervention.
• Access to health care as a strategy for protecting the public’s health.
• Taxation, spending, licensing, zoning, and shared-use strategies for chronic disease prevention.
• The public health law perspective on violence and injury prevention.
• Health justice as a framework for reducing health disparities and protecting the public’s health.

Lawrence O. Gostin is University Professor, the Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law, and Director of the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law and the World Health Organization Collaborating Center on Public Health Law and Human Rights at Georgetown University, and Professor of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University

Lindsay F. Wiley is Associate Professor at American University’s Washington College of Law. She serves on the Board of Directors of the American Society for Law, Medicine, and Ethics and on the National Conference of Lawyers and Scientists.

Thomas R. Frieden is the Director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Acting Administrator of the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry.

List of Illustrations, Tables, and Boxes
Foreword
Thomas R. Frieden

Preface to the Third Edition
Acknowledgments

PART ONE. CONCEPTUAL FOUNDATION OF PUBLIC HEALTH LAW

1. A Theory and Definition of Public Health Law

Public Health Law: A Definition and Core Values
Government Power and Duty: Health as a Salient Value
The Power to Coerce and Limits on State Power
The Population Perspective
The Prevention Orientation
The Social Justice Foundation
Evolving Models of Public Health Problem Solving
Law as a Tool for the Public’s Health: Modes of Legal Intervention
The Legitimate Scope of Public Health and the Law

2. Risk Regulation: A Systematic Evaluation

General Justifications for Public Health Regulation
Risk Assessment
The Effectiveness of Regulation: The Means/Ends Test
The Economic Costs of Public Health Regulation
The Personal Burdens of Public Health Regulation: The
Least Restrictive Alternative
Fairness in Public Health: Just Distribution of Benefits and Burdens
Transparency, Trust, and Legitimacy
The Precautionary Principle: Acting under Conditions of Scientific
Uncertainty

PART TWO. LEGAL FOUNDATIONS OF PUBLIC HEALTH

3. Public Health Law in the Constitutional Design:
Public Health Powers and Duties

Constitutional Functions and Their Application to Public Health
The Negative Constitution from a Public Health Perspective
State and Local Power to Assure the Conditions for the
Public’s Health: Salus Populi Est Suprema Lex
Federal Power to Safeguard the Public’s Health
Private Enforcement of Federal Law: Standing and
Sovereign Immunity
Structural Constraints and the Public’s Health

4. Constitutional Limits on the Exercise of Public Health
Powers: Safeguarding Individual Rights and Freedoms

Public Health and the Bill of Rights
Constitutional Limits on the Police Power in the
Early Twentieth Century: Jacobson and Lochner
Limits on Public Health Powers in the Modern
Constitutional Era
Public Health and Civil Liberties: Conflict and Complementarity

5. Public Health Governance: Democracy and Delegation

Public Health Agencies and the Rise of the Administrative State
Administrative Law: Powers and Limits of Executive Agencies
Local Government Authority
Local Administrative Rulemaking: The Interplay between
Local Government Law and State Administrative Law
Delegation, Democracy, Expertise, and Good Governance

PART THREE. MODES OF LEGAL INTERVENTION

6. Direct Regulation for the Public’s Health and Safety

A Brief History of Public Health Regulation
Approaches to Regulation
Environmental Protection: A Case Study on the Spectrum
of Regulatory Approaches
Deregulation: Removing Legal Barriers to Effective Public
Health Intervention
Harm Reduction for Illicit Drug Users: A Case Study on
Deregulation

7. Tort Law and the Public’s Health: Indirect Regulation

Major Theories of Tort Liability
The Causation Element: Epidemiology in the Courtroom
The Public Health Value of Tort Litigation
The Tobacco Wars: A Case Study
The Tort Reform Movement

8. Taxation, Spending, and the Social Safety Net:
Hidden Effects on Public Health

Taxation and Incentives
The Power of Spending
Taxation and Spending to Increase Access to Health Care
Children’s Dental Health: A Case Study

PART FOUR. PUBLIC HEALTH LAW IN CONTEXT

9. Surveillance and Public Health Research: Privacy,
Security, and Confidentiality of Personal Health
Information

Public Health Surveillance
Public Health Research
Privacy, Confidentiality, and Security: Defining Concepts
Health Information Privacy: Ethical and Pragmatic Underpinnings
Health Information Privacy: Legal Status
Privacy and Confidentiality in Research
Privacy and Health: Case Studies on HIV and Diabetes Surveillance
Public Health in the Age of Big Data

10. Infectious Disease Prevention and Control

Vaccination: Immunizing the Population against Disease
Testing and Screening
Antimicrobial Therapy
Contact Tracing and Partner Notification
Social-Ecological Prevention Strategies: Case Studies on HIV and
Hospital-Acquired Infections

11. Public Health Emergency Preparedness: Terrorism,
Pandemics, and Disasters

The Federal-State Balance in Public Health Preparedness
Emergency Declarations
Evacuation and Emergency Sheltering: The Needs of
Vulnerable Populations
Development and Distribution of Medical Countermeasures
Quarantine, Isolation, Controlled Movement, and
Community Containment Strategies

12. Noncommunicable Disease Prevention: Promoting
Healthier Lifestyles

The Burden of Noncommunicable Disease
Evolving Public Health Strategies and the Politics of
Noncommunicable Disease Prevention
The Information Environment
The Marketplace
The Built Environment
The Social Environment

13. Injury and Violence Prevention from a Public Health
Perspective: Promoting Safer Lifestyles

Key Concepts in Injury Prevention
Worker Safety
Motor Vehicle and Consumer Product Safety
Emerging Issues in Injury Prevention
Preventing Firearm Injuries: A Case Study

14. Health Justice and the Future of Public Health Law

Health Disparities
Social Justice as a Core Value of Public Health Law
Social Justice and Health Disparities in Three Recent Movements
The Challenges: Public Health, Politics, and Money
Legitimacy and Trust at Risk
The Problem of Framing
The Future of Public Health Law

Notes
About the Authors
Index