Boston University School of Public Health

Law is the primary means for putting public health policy into effect. Federal and state laws set standards for clean air, water, food, and product and workplace safety, just to mention a few examples. Law is also the primary tool for promoting individual civil and human rights such as privacy and freedom from discrimination or involuntary treatment. Although law embodies enduring principles of justice, it is no static set of rules, but evolves in response to new research and new challenges. Students will discover this dynamic process in a wide range of subjects, such as genetic testing and privacy, tobacco control, dangerous consumer products, workplace hazards, managed care, biomedical research, and national emergencies.

The department's teaching and research activities explore both individual rights and governmental authority to protect health. In the human rights arena the department considers connections between health and social justice in the United States and abroad. Its bioethics courses analyze not only what can be done in the health care system but what should be done, and explicitly examines the values and beliefs that govern both the people and the institutions that affect health today.