Berries, tomatoes, and green beans in small green containers at farmer's market.

Food is Medicine Approaches to Address Diet-Related Health Conditions

By Hannah Rahim

Food is Medicine interventions aim to prevent and treat diet-related chronic health conditions and reduce food insecurity by providing food to individuals and communities, in connection with the health care system. While Food is Medicine has been gaining prominence in recent years, it has also received some criticism. This article will explore the development of Food is Medicine and its limitations, and briefly offer recommendations for successful Food is Medicine initiatives.

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Gavel and stethoscope.

Eight Opportunities to Use the Law to Address Social Determinants of Health

By Jon Larsen and Sterling Johnson

Addressing the opioid crisis cannot stop at providing better access to treatment for opioid use disorder (OUD), expanding and enhancing harm reduction efforts, and reimagining the role of law enforcement, as explored previously in this blog series. The response must go further to make treatment and harm reduction more effective, by acknowledging the opioid epidemic as a reflection of the conditions of the whole society, identifying those conditions, and addressing them head-on. A whole-person response to OUD and other substance use disorders needs a well-coordinated whole-of-government response to address myriad societal issues that are critical to effective drug treatment, including, but not limited to, housing, education, economic development, and tax policy.   

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Disposable syringe isolated on black background.

Six Opportunities to Use the Law to Support Harm Reduction

By Jon Larsen and Sterling Johnson

Harm reduction in the context of the opioid crisis is focused on preventing overdose and infectious disease transmission by working with people who use drugs without moral judgment. Far too often, the public health imperative of harm reduction is blocked by federal policy, state laws, and other structural barriers anchored in the “war on drugs” that reduce the effectiveness of harm reduction efforts. To maximize the potential of harm reduction requires a whole-of-government approach, involving coordination across levels of government. 

As noted in this recent report, “Bringing the W-G approach to bear on a complex problem depends on several components, including agreement as to the problem, understanding the problem, and the causes of the problem. For many involved in government at all levels, the harm reduction challenge unfortunately falls at the first of those hurdles.”

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Judge's gavel, handcuffs and scales on grey background, flat lay with space for text. Criminal law concept.

Seven Opportunities to Use the Law to Address Drug Policing

By Jon Larsen and Sterling Johnson

There is a well-established whole of government response to drug policing centered around the “war on drugs.” However, the existing response is largely built on flawed policies that have resulted in mass incarceration, structural racism, and lagging improvements in treatment and harm reduction related to the opioid crisis. Policy changes must be considered to replace acknowledged failures and reimagine the whole of government response to drug policing. 

With support from the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE), public health law experts from Indiana University McKinney School of Law and the Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research at the Beasley School of Law recently embarked on a systematic review of US drug policy using a whole-of-government (W-G) approach to assess where these misalignments are occurring among different agencies at the same level of government (referred to as horizontal W-G), and across different levels of government (referred to as vertical W-G). It ultimately provides a tool to address these misalignments directly. 

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Shot of a landline telephone receiver hanging upside down.

Addressing Ghost Networks in Mental Health Care

By Hannah Rahim

Many mental health provider directories for private and public insurance plans contain inaccurate or outdated provider information, which creates a misleading illusion of accessible care. These ghost networks result in many patients being unable to access essential mental health care. To tackle this issue, federal and state governments should strengthen the regulation of insurance networks and insurers should address underlying causes of inadequate networks.

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scales on blue background.

Judging in the Pandemic – A Malawian Perspective

By Zione Ntaba

Malawi is not a stranger to public health crises in the last number of years, having faced a severe HIV epidemic and several cholera outbreaks continuing into 2023. Nevertheless, the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic caused a major panic in the country’s legal system and judiciary. COVID-19 brought to fruition a major ethical dilemma in ensuring the justice system’s continued functioning, while also protecting the lives of all those involved, and simultaneously ensuring the promotion and protection of human rights.

The constitutional mandate of ensuring access to justice in Malawi, a country which already struggles with effective and efficient justice delivery at the best of times, required urgent resolution, especially noting the potential of human rights violations arising from State responses to COVID-19 worldwide. Interestingly, in addition to the general need to safeguard the justice system as a whole, the pandemic itself brought before the courts issues relating to public health and human rights.

The prevailing principle in Malawi, as it is internationally, is for the judicial system to ensure that there exists an equal balance between the protection and promotion of human rights and the fair and just administration of justice. The courts in Malawi were called upon to rise above the political bureaucracy, to ensure judicial impartiality when dealing with pandemic-related issues. This was crucial in a context in which political responses to the pandemic sometimes remained unquestioned or unchallenged. However, unless these principles — of human rights and fair administration of justice — were properly upheld by the courts, sadly they may have remained in the world of the metaphysical.

It is with this context in mind that I turn to reflecting on the Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (“Principles”).

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Bill of Health - Gavel on mask during pandemic, class action lawsuits during pandemic

Old Dogs and New Tricks: A Case for the Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights & Public Health Emergencies

By Nerima Were and Allan Maleche

Taking into account our experiences as human rights lawyers working in Kenya during the COVID-19 pandemic, in this article we briefly analyze the Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (the Principles) and make a case for their utility in guiding State measures to prepare for, prevent, and respond to future pandemics consistently with international human rights law and standards.

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Suboxone.

Five Opportunities to Use the Law to Address Persistent OUD Treatment Gaps 

By Jon Larsen and Sterling Johnson

People who need opioid use (OUD) treatment in the United States are often not receiving it — at least two million people with OUD are experiencing a treatment gap that prevents or hampers their ability to receive life-saving care and support. This reality reflects structural, policy, and legal misalignments common to the entire U.S. health care system, but that are especially present for behavioral health needs like substance use, and are exacerbated by other challenges related to stigma, lack of employment, and fragmented or nonexistent care coordination.  

With support from the Foundation for Opioid Response Efforts (FORE), public health law experts from Indiana University McKinney School of Law and the Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research at the Beasley School of Law recently embarked on a systematic review of U.S. drug policy using a whole-of-government (W-G) approach to assess where these misalignments are occurring among different agencies at the same level of government (referred to as horizontal W-G), and across different levels of government (referred to as vertical W-G). It ultimately provides a tool to address these misalignments directly. 

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Globe on clean yellow background.

Reviewing Solidarity in the Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies

By Eduardo Arenas Catalán

The Principles and Guidelines on Human Rights and Public Health Emergencies (the Principles), entail a notable attempt to consolidate lessons learned from the COVID-19 pandemic. After the largely non-solidaristic international response to COVID-19, the Principles outline the advantages and limitations of embedding human rights discourse within the global public health machinery.

One key element that will test the Principles will be their ability to influence the measures taken, including by States, in preparing for, preventing, and responding to future public health emergencies with increased solidarity. That uncertain future aside, by incorporating critical elements of solidarity, which so far have been largely absent in the human rights corpus, these Principles strengthen the protection of human rights in international law.

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