This course will explore a variety of legal and ethical issues that arise when public health initiatives constrain individual rights. It will introduce students to the scientific foundations of public health, the regulatory origins of public health policy, and the ethical and legal tools for thoughtfully examining public health measures. Specific topics for consideration will include the role of federal and state governments in public health regulation; constitutional limitations on state police power; tort law as a public health tool; the just allocation of resources during disasters; and the tension between public health and civil liberties in contexts such as compulsory vaccination programs, the testing/screening/disclosure of disease or drug use, the quarantine/isolation of people with infectious disease, and various responses to bio-terrorism. Students enrolled in the course will take a final exam.
|This course is not currently scheduled.|
Last offered Fall 2016.