Health Equity Law

Health equity is the “attainment of the highest level of health for all people.¹ Health equity can be achieved only by eliminating health disparities—the preventable differences in the health of one group over another as the result of factors such as race, sexual orientation, gender, disability, age, socioeconomic status, or geographic location. Law is a valuable tool to help achieve health equity. The Public Health Law Program’s (PHLP’s) Health Equity portfolio includes research on antidiscrimination laws, as well as research on public health law’s impact on the social determinants of health.

The resources below provide more information about health equity as it relates to law.

Law and the Social Determinants of Health—Education, Housing, Environment, Economics

• Health in All Policies (HiAP)
  • Team Health: Legal Landscape of Federal and State HiAP and HIA Laws
    American Public Health Association, November 2015
• Housing
  • Homelessness as Public Health Law Issue: Selected Resources
    A list of resources collected and published by PHLP that describe and comment on homelessness as a public health issue.
• Education as a Social Determinant of Health: The Role of Laws and Policies
  •  Webinar: Making Sure Kids are Healthy Enough to Learn: Innovations in Education Law and Policy – Network for Public Health Law (networkforphl.org), September 2019
• Environment and Health
  • Webinar: Learning from the Flint Water Crisis: Legal Implications and Community Public Health Impacts, (May 15, 2018)
  • Webinar: Public Health’s Legal Authority and Safe Drinking Water
    American Public Health Association, April 5, 2016

Antidiscrimination Law

• Balancing Client Privacy with First Amendment Rights in Local Health Department Clinics – Network for Public Health Law (networkforphl.org)
• Mechanisms for Advancing Health Equity – Network for Public Health Law (networkforphl.org)
• Balancing Client Privacy with First Amendment Rights in Local Health Department Clinics – Network for Public Health Law (networkforphl.org)

Other CDC Resources

• Health Equity
  Office of Minority Health and Health Equity
  • CDC Health Disparities & Inequalities Report (CHDIR)
• Health Equity
  National Center for Chronic Disease Prevention and Health Promotion
  • A Practitioner’s Guide for Advancing Health Equity: Community Strategies for Preventing Chronic Disease
• Office of Health Equity
  Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention/Office
• Tribal Public Health Law Resources
  PHLP law and policy resources related to tribal public health

Other Partners’ Resources

• Building Streets for Health and Equity
  ChangeLab Solutions
• Health Equity
  Association of State and Territorial Health Officials
• Health Equity
  The Community Guide
• Health Equity and Social Justice
  National Association of County and City Health Officials
• Health Equity
  American Public Health Association
• Health Disparities
  Robert Wood Johnson Foundation

Footnote

1. US Department of Health and Human Services, Office of Minority Health. National Partnership for Action to End Health Disparities. The National Plan for Action Draft as of February 17, 2010. Chapter 1: Introduction.