About the Center for Health Policy and Law

Based in Northeastern University School of Law, the Center for Health Policy and Law draws from participating departments across Northeastern University to provide a rich context for students and researchers interested in public health law, health and human rights, health governance, intellectual property, bioethics, health care delivery law and the regulation of our health care system. It is guided by faculty and staff with diverse areas of expertise and is affiliated with an array of university-wide institutes, programs and experiential learning opportunities.

Wendy E. Parmet Faculty Director

Jennifer Lea Huer Managing Director

Conferences and Events

Northeastern University School of Law is thrilled to host the 44th Annual Health Law Professors Conference in collaboration with the American Society of Law, Medicine & Ethics (ASLME) on June 7 and 9-11, 2021. Registration is now open! You can view the schedule here. We are currently building a website to host the virtual event. Stay tuned for more information! ASLME is also accepting nominations for the Jay Healey Teaching Award.

Spring 2021 Health Law Roundtables January 27 Misinformation, Hesitancy and Legal Tools for Increasing Vaccination Dorit Reiss Professor of Law and the James Edgar Hervey '50 Chair of Litigation, UC Hastings Law February 09 The PrEP Penalty Doron Dorfman Associate Professor of Law, Syracuse University College of Law April 07 World Health Day: Celebrating the Work of Mariah McGill '09 Co-hosted with the Program on Global Health and the Economy (PHRGE) Esther Kamau PhD Candidate, School for Global Inclusion and Social Development, UMass Boston; Fellow, Center for Peace, Democracy and Development, UMass Boston Gillian MacNaughton Associate Professor of Human Rights, School of Global Inclusion and Social Development, UMass Boston Anja Rudiger Senior Advisor, Partners for Dignity & Rights

ANNUAL HEALTH LAW CONFERENCE

Our Annual Health Law Conference, Health and the Body Politic: Undermining Democracy, Undermining Health, took place on April 16.

View the recording

This year marked the fourth collaboration between the Center for Health Policy and Law and the Northeastern University Law Review to disseminate a call for papers, select authors, and co-host a workshop as part of the annual event. Paper topics focused on: Activismitis Tribal Consultation and Health Policy Second-Class Health in the Absence of Democracy Post-Truth Won’t Set us Free: Health Law, Patient Autonomy and the Rise of the Infodemic Papers will be published in an upcoming issue of the Northeastern University Law Review.

We were also thrilled to collaborate with the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH) to co-host a panel discussion on the "Fascist Threat to Health."

Center Updates

New COVID-19 Policy Playbook

Last winter, as the United States entered the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, which has resulted in more than 500,000 deaths to-date and caused a historic economic recession, 50 top legal experts convened to offer a new assessment of the U.S. policy response to the crisis in the COVID-19 Policy Playbook: Legal Recommendations for a Safer, More Equitable Future. In the Policy Playbook, authors recommend concrete policy solutions for all levels of government that draw on the lessons of the past year, and aim to ensure a healthier and more equitable future. Read the full report here. Enjoy reading chapters written by Northeastern University School of Law faculty and graduates: Strategies to Address the Chronic Shortage of N95 Masks and Other Filtering Facepiece Respirators during the COVID-19 Pandemic, Michael S. Sinha COVID-19, Incarceration & the Criminal Legal System, Jessica Bresler '20 and Leo Beletsky Reversing Immigration Law’s Adverse Impact on Health, Wendy E. Parmet, Closing Reflection: The Way Forward, Patricia Williams The report was produced by Public Health Law Watch in cooperation with the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University Beasley School of Law, Center for Health Policy and Law, Northeastern University School of Law, Wayne State University Law School, the Hall Center for Law and Health, Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, The Network for Public Health Law, and ChangeLab Solutions.

Salus Populi: Educating the Judiciary about the Social Determinants of Health

The Center for Health Policy and Law, in collaboration with the Institute for Health Equity and Social Justice Research, received a $500,000 grant from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to launch “Salus Populi: Educating the Judiciary About the Social Determinants of Health.” The project recently launched its website, which includes resources to help judges and law clerks explore the importance of the judiciary’s role in rendering decisions that influence social determinants of health, thereby improving health equity and population health over time. The project will host a pilot its judicial education course in fall 2021.

COVID-19 Law and Policy Briefings

Earlier this year, Public Health Law Watch continued its series of COVID-19 Law and Policy Briefings, co-sponsored by the Center for Health Policy and Law at Northeastern University School of Law, the Center for Public Health Law Research at Temple University Beasley School of Law, the Network for Public Health Law, ChangeLab Solutions, and the APHA Law Section. The briefings featured public health law experts from around the country who discussed the biggest legal issues arising from the COVID-19 pandemic. Briefings can be viewed on the Public Health Law Watch YouTube channel.

Faculty Updates

Aziza Ahmed was a speaker during this year's International Law and COVID-19 Symposium at University of Miami School of Law. Her discussion on “Gender and COVID” was featured on the second day of the virtual event.

Leo Beletsky was recently elected to the Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest (APA).

Claudia Haupt presented “Assuming Access to Professional Advice” at the First Amendment Values in Health Care Symposium hosted by the George Washington University Law School.

Northeastern University School of Law recently hosted the 2021 New England Clinical Conference. This year's conference, organized by Margo Lindauer, focused on Racial Injustice in the Law and Institutions: Building Toward an Anti-Racist Future in Experiential Programs.

Wendy E. Parmet can be heard on The Atlantic podcast during a recent episode on “The Crime of Refusing Vaccination.”

This spring, Michael Sinha was a Distinguished Health Law Guest Scholar at Seton Hall University School of Law. His presentation, “Generic but Expensive: Why Prices Can Remain High for Off-Patent Drugs,” was hosted as part of The Center for Health & Pharmaceutical Law’s Spring Speaker Series.

Selected Faculty Publications

Aziza Ahmed  “Race, Risk, and Personal Responsibility in the Response to COVID-19,”  121 Columbia Law Review Forum No. 3 (co-author). “The Politics of CDC Public Health Guidance During COVID-19,”  Bill of Health (Dec. 7, 2020).

Brook Baker  “Pfizer and BioNTech Profiteering Exposed – More than Enough is Enough,” Health Gap (Mar. 31, 2021). “Dummy’s guide to how trade rules affect access to COVID-19 vaccines,” The Conversation (Jan. 9, 2021) (co-author). “New VIIV License with the Medicines Patent Pool Expands Access but Eviscerates Transparency,” InfoJustice (Dec. 1, 2020).

Leo Beletsky  “Beyond Decriminalization: Ending the War on Drugs Requires Recasting Police Discretion through the Lens of a Public Health Ethic,” 21 The American Journal of Bioethics 41 (Apr. 07, 2021) (co-author). “Why It's Time to Abandon Drug Courts,” The Crime Report (Mar. 5, 2021) (co-author). “Forced Addiction Treatment Could Be Death Sentence During COVID-19,” Commonwealth Magazine (Jan. 20, 2021) (co-author).

Claudia Haupt  “Lethal Lies: Government Speech, Distorted Science, and the First Amendment,” University of Illinois Law Review (forthcoming) (co-authored with Wendy E. Parmet). “Regulating Speech Online: Free Speech Values in Constitutional Frames,” Washington University Law Review (forthcoming). “Public Health Originalism and the First Amendment,” 78 Washington and Lee Law Review 231 (co-authored with Wendy E. Parmet).

Margo Lindauer  “Beyond Non-Violent Offenses: Criminal Justice Reform and Intimate Partner Violence in the Age of Progressive Prosecution,” 16 Stanford Journal of Civil Rights & Civil Liberties 457 (2021) (co-author).

Wendy E. Parmet “Employer-Mandated Vaccination for COVID-19,” American Journal of Public Health online (Feb. 4, 2021) (co-author). “Employers' Vaccine Mandates are Representative of America's Failed Approach to Public Health,” The Atlantic (Feb. 4, 2021). “The COVID Cases: A Preliminary Assessment of Judicial Review of Public Health Powers During a Partisan and Polarized Pandemic,” 57 San Diego Law Review 999 (2020).

northeastern.edu/law/health