Overview
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.
(Developed by the Mitchell Hamline School of Law’s Native American Law and Sovereignty Institute
and used on our website with permission)
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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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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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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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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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Grounded in Equity: Effective Public Health Law & Policy
Public Health Law Center attorneys provide an overview of key terminology and theories such as the social determinants of health, inequity, and health equity, and describe ways to ensure that equity is addressed in every stage of the law and policy change process, including research, solution identification, drafting, advocacy, enforcement, and evaluation.
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Pride in Policy: Advancing the Health of the LGBTQ+ Community
This presentation describes the history of tobacco marketing to LGBTQ+ communities by highlighting industry documents, print advertisements, and social media. Presenters will also cover policy strategies to help lessen the burden of tobacco in LGBTQ+ communities, such as smoke free and commercial tobacco free policies at Pride festivals and menthol and other flavor bans.
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Changing Hearts, Minds, and Structures
This article describes policy and programmatic approaches in four states, with a focus on a landmark equity policy adopted by the Minnesota Department of Human Services (DHS).
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Equity in Action: Operationalizing Processes in State Governance
This article showcases efforts in California, Colorado, and Minnesota to embed an equity lens into the formulation and implementation of legislated and non-legislated policies and practices.
Equity in Action: Operationalizing Processes in State Governance
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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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Lipstick on a Pig: A Look at the Tobacco Industry’s Human Rights Rhetoric
The tobacco industry is increasingly using human rights language to promote themselves. However, as British American Tobacco (BAT) demonstrates, the tobacco industry is also not reconciling its own contributions to human rights concerns – most especially the human right to health.
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