Tag: Public Health Law

Wooden figurine of a person leans against a wood wall clock

Patient Satisfaction in the NHS in England with the Emergency Room

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By John Tingle

The Accident and Emergency (A&E), the Emergency Room, is the bellwether NHS speciality from which all the other clinical specialities appear to be judged. Long reported delays and missed targets in the A&E (Emergency Room) lead to a public, media clamoring that the NHS is a failing public service. The independent regulator of health and social care in England, the CQC (Care Quality Commission) recently published findings from a national survey of more than 50,000 people who received urgent and emergency care from 132 NHS trusts (hospitals).The survey looked at people’s experiences, from decision to attend, to leave, using Type 1 (major A&E) and Type 3 (urgent care centers, minor injury units, urgent treatment centers) urgent and emergency care services.

Survey Results

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End of year report cards from NHS Resolution and the Care Quality Commission

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By John Tingle

Two key NHS (National Health Service) organisations have recently produced reports. NHS Resolution has produced its annual report and accounts.The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has produced a report on the experiences of adult in -patients in NHS hospitals.These reports are excellent for real-time trend analysis and important patient safety and clinical negligence trends are identified.

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Housing Equity Week in Review

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research Leave a comment

Here’s the latest news from housing law and equity, from the week of August 21-28, 2017:

  • Economists from the Federal Reserve of San Francisco show the enduring negative effects of redlining on communities of color, via the New York Times.
  • The Atlanta Black Star published a review of the impact and persisting health effects of segregation on communities of color.
  • A new report by the Urban Institute shed light on the costs of segregation for metropolitan regions. Read a review of the report on How Housing Matters: https://howhousingmatters.org/articles/what-are-the-costs-of-segregation/
  • New York Magazine ran an expose about HUD under the leadership of Ben Carson
  • As relief efforts continue in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, we are reminded by the July 2016 piece on privately owned subsidized housing in flood areas in Houston, via the Houston Chronicle.

Housing Equity Week in Review

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research Leave a comment

Some interesting local-level developments in housing, equity and law last week. Here’s our round-up of the news from last week, February 6-12, 2017:

  • What would happen if we stopped thinking about our home as an investment? Conor Dougherty of the New York Times argues that if we treated houses like we treat microwaves, the economy will improve and inequality will reduce.
  • Cleveland shared its timeline for first citywide housing inspection for lead
  • New York City will devote $90 million to offer legal representation for low income tenants in housing courts. This is a big victory for the “civil Gideon” right-to-council movement, via Gothamist.
  • The US Treasury and the Tennessee Housing Development Agency come together to provide funds for first time homebuyers down payments in Nashville, via NextCity

Did we miss any big housing, law and equity stories this week? Let us know!

Changing How We Think (and Talk) About Public Health Law

Temple University Center for Public Health Law Research Leave a comment

By Scott Burris, JD

Marice Ashe, Donna Levin, Matthew Penn, Michelle Larkin and I have a new piece in the Annual Review of Public Health (also available on SSRN). We set out a “transdisciplinary model of public health law” that encompasses within the core of the field both the traditional public health law practice of lawyers and what we call “legal epidemiology” — all the important public health law functions (from policy design to evaluation) that are typically carried out by people without legal training. I hope you will take a look.

Why this article and a transdisciplinary model? The idea comes out of the experience that the authors have all had trying to promote public health law practice and research. We realized that in spite of the success of the field and its importance to public health, a lot of non-lawyers in public health training, practice and research were uncomfortable with law — even when their work had to do with enforcing it or evaluating its impact.

We realized that we as lawyers were making things worse, by adhering to a traditional view of public health law as purely a practice of lawyers. We found that acknowledging the work of non-lawyers in public health law, conceptualizing key public health law activities in scientific terms, and even borrowing some scientific practices for legal work, were effective ways to change attitudes and improve our impact. Many of us have articles in the pipeline on legal epidemiology, policy surveillance and “the five essential public health law services” that will show the model in action.

I don’t have to tell readers of this blog that public health law is a great field. I hope the concept of transdisciplinary model will help make it a truly integral part of public health.

Read the full article here.

Last Year Was A Wild One For Health Law — What’s On The Docket For 2015?

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Greg Curfman, Holly Fernandez Lynch and I. Glenn Cohen

This new blog post by Greg Curfman, Holly Fernandez Lynch and I. Glenn Cohen appears on the Health Affairs Blog:

Everywhere we look, we see the tremendous impact of new legal developments—whether regulatory or statutory, federal or state—on health and health care. These topics range from insurance to intellectual property to religion to professionalism to civil rights. They remain among the most important questions facing Americans today.

This post is the first in a series that will stem from the Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review event to be held at Harvard Law School on Friday, January 30, 2015. The conference, which is free and open to the public, brings together leading experts to review major developments in health law over the previous year, and preview what is to come.

Read the full post here, and register for the Third Annual Health Law Year in P/Review for free here.

Ebola and the Return of Quarantine

The Petrie-Flom Center Staff Leave a comment

By Wendy Parmet
[Ed. Note: Cross-posted from HealthLawProf Blog.]

Last month’s riots in an Ebola-infected slum in Monrovia, Liberia demonstrated anew the perils of relying on quarantine, and similar highly coercive public health laws, to contain highly contagious diseases.

At first blush, Ebola viral disease (EVD) is exactly the type of disease for which broad quarantines (more precisely, sanitary cordons) would seem appropriate. Transmitted through direct contact with the bodily fluids of an infected person, EVD can spread rapidly through a community, as it has done in several West African nations. Although experimental treatments and vaccines offer promise for the future, they have not yet been shown to be effective in humans; nor are they readily available. As a result, health officials are forced to rely on tried and true public health strategies, such as identifying cases, isolating and treating them with strict infection control measures, and monitoring their contacts. Needless to say, doing so is very challenging and very expensive, especially in highly urbanized areas, with weak health systems.

Given the challenges, health officials and government leaders are often tempted to call in the troops, and rely on more heavy-handed measures, such as imposing sanitary cordons around whole towns or neighborhoods, quarantining those who have had contact with patients, and restricting travel into and out of affected regions. Although the impetus for these measures is understandable given the magnitude of the EVD threat, history suggests that such highly coercive tactics frequently backfire. Like the military-style show of force employed by the police department in Ferguson, Missouri earlier this summer, highly coercive public health measures can undermine the public’s trust in authorities. Thus, rather than reduce travel, identify contacts, and come forward if they show symptoms, individuals are more apt to try to leave affected areas and avoid the health care system. Or they riot, as they did in Monrovia and China during the SARS outbreak. In any case, the problem is made worse not better. Read More

National Conference on HIV Criminalization

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By Sterling Johnson, JD

Grinnell College in Iowa will host the first National Conference on HIV Criminalization next week, June 2-5 on its campus.

One of the stated goals of the conference will be to discuss the recent legislative changes in Iowa and how to apply the lessons to other states with laws that apply specifically to people with HIV.

Currently, 43 states criminalize actions by HIV-positive individuals. Check out our map at LawAtlas.org for more details.

US states with HIV criminalization laws

In 2009, Iowa became the center of this battle when Nick Rhoades, who is HIV-positive, had a one-time sexual encounter with another man, Adam Plendl. Three months after, Mr. Rhoades was arrested on suspicion of engaging in intimate contact without disclosing his HIV-positive status. At the time of the sexual encounter, he used a condom, had an undetectable viral load and his sexual partner did not contract HIV; however, Nick Rhoades was sentenced to 25 years in prison and classified as a sex offender. The case is now is now on appeal and being argued by Lambda Legal. The Iowa court of Appeals affirmed the conviction and the case is now under review by the Iowa Supreme Court. Mr. Rhoades’s case led to community organizers lobbying to reform the HIV criminalization law in Iowa. Read More