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Health Law as Social Justice
1American University Washington College of Law.
Cornell Journal of Law and Public Policy
|January 28, 2016
Summary
Health law is shifting towards social justice, focusing on health disparities and access to care. The emerging health justice movement advocates for broader social determinants of health and community engagement.
Area of Science:
- Health Law and Policy
- Social Justice Studies
- Public Health
Background:
- Health law is evolving from a narrow focus on provider-payer relationships to a broader scope encompassing access to care and healthy living conditions.
- Reducing health disparities has become a central objective in American health law and policy, driven by decades of reform efforts.
- The Affordable Care Act and public health law initiatives have paved the way for a greater emphasis on social determinants of health.
Purpose of the Study:
- To label, describe, and advance the emerging "health justice" movement.
- To examine the concept of health law as an instrument of social justice.
- To propose health justice as an alternative paradigm to current market competition and patient rights frameworks in health law.
Main Methods:
- Drawing on experiences from reproductive, environmental, and food justice movements.
- Analyzing writings from political philosophers and ethicists on health justice.
- Examining the role of law in reducing health disparities through a health justice lens.
Main Results:
- The health justice framework suggests three commitments for using law to reduce health disparities: broader inquiry into social determinants of health, probing analysis of bias in disparity reduction measures, and collective action through community engagement.
- The framework highlights tensions within social justice and the health justice movement, underscoring the power of viewing health law through a social justice lens.
- These tensions prompt rigorous thinking in health law scholarship, activism, and the broader relationship between law and social justice.
Conclusions:
- Viewing health law as social justice offers a powerful framework for addressing health disparities.
- The health justice movement necessitates a broader understanding of health determinants and a commitment to equitable practices.
- Further exploration of the interplay between law, social justice, and health equity is crucial for advancing public health and well-being.
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