The Public Health Law Center is committed to co-creating healthier, more equitable communities with our partners and allies. The roots of racism and other forms of systemic bias and oppression are deep. Laws and policies have contributed to significant disparities by failing to protect, and often actively harming, groups who are socially and economically marginalized. As professionals working with law and policy, we strive to center equity across our work in support of policy change that leads towards a more just and equitable world.

 

Land Acknowledgment

  • HEALTH EQUITY AND POLICY

    Below are just a few of our resources that center equity in policy. Visit the Health Equity at the Public Health Law Center webpage to learn more.

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    Building Resilient Workplaces

    Stress and trauma can affect employees at work, but trauma-responsive policies can help create supportive, resilient workplaces. By prioritizing resilience, employers can boost productivity, collaboration, and employee well-being on and off the worksite. The Center created this resource with the Minnesota Department of Health's Statewide Health Improvement Partnership to provide examples of resiliency-informed workplace policies that support employees and contribute to productive workplaces.

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    Minnesota State Capitol Building

    Applying Racial & Health Equity Impact Assessments For Better Policy Making

    Researchers at the Public Health Law Center and the University of Minnesota School of Public Health collaborated on a study to analyze how R/HEIAs are being applied to food-related legislation at the state and local levels. We focused on food related legislation because nutrition is a social determinant of health, and this focus provided a diverse but manageable sample of reports. This report summarizes the study processes and findings, and includes recommendations for key R/HEIA policy components.

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    • US Map showing State with REIA Laws

      CARE resource: Racial Equity Impact Assessment Laws

      Racial Equity Impact Assessments (REIAs) can help predict how proposed policies may impact communities based on race or ethnicity. Through the Collaborative for Anti-Racism and Equity (CARE), the Public Health Law Center partnered with the Network for Public Health Law to create a summary of proposed or enacted legislation requiring REIAs in state-level legislative processes nationwide to support informed, just, and equitable. 

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    • Dad holding young daughter

      Expanding Health Care Access to All

      This policy brief describes the racist and xenophobic roots of current policies that exclude undocumented immigrants from access to health care insurance and other public benefits, and summarizes the current health insurance policy landscape.

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    • Older Women and Female Doctor at the Doctor's Office

      Expanding Health Care Access to All: State Case Studies

      Expanding access to health care for all, regardless of immigration status, is a racial and health equity priority. This set of resources provides deeper insights into state policy levers to expand access to full health care for all.

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      Pride and Prejudice: The Tobacco Industry’s Co-opting of the LGBTQ+ Community

      Pride and Prejudice exposes the commercial tobacco industry's targeting of the LGBTQ+ community using historical documents, advertisements and marketing campaigns.

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      The Tobacco Industry & the Black Community: The Targeting of African Americans

      Factsheet describing the tobacco industry’s manipulation and abuse of targeted, at-risk populations and its use of front groups, distortion, and corporate giving to mask disreputable corporate conduct.

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    • Teens Gardening

      Equity and Inclusion in Public Health Laws

      Law impacts our health and our opportunities to lead healthy lives in multi-layered ways. This resource offers guidance on how to use the Five Essential Public Health Law Services Framework and other resources to address racism and other social determinants of health in the public health sector.

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    • Food Justice Rally in New York

      Healthy Food Policy Project: Towards Equitable and Just Food Systems

      This resource explores the evolving language of food systems and policy work centered on addressing structural racism and inequity. It describes equity-focused terms and frameworks related to the food system, outlines how these terms and frameworks are used in food policy, and provides examples of what they mean in practice.

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      Does a human rights-based approach to harm reduction support commercialized harm reduction?

      This article, written by staff attorney Neil Sircar and research assistant Mary Fleming, reviews industry materials from 2017 to 2022 to identify themes in the harm reduction narrative of the tobacco industry and analyse those themes using an HRBA to the tobacco harm reduction framework.

      Link to article

      Does a human rights-based approach to harm reduction support commercialized harm reduction?
    • Sign that reads "Health Equity"

      Centering Equity in the Tobacco Control Act's Public Health Standard

      Overview of the legal standard by which FDA makes some of its most important tobacco control regulatory decisions and explanation of why health equity should guide its decision making in setting product standards and reviewing new products.

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