Public Health Law: Areas of Research and Advocacy

Public Health and Disability Law. Currently, the Public Health Law program is working on legal issues facing persons with disabilities. The project will allow students opportunities to work with policy issues affecting children and/or adults with disabilities and their families. The Center has worked with Riley Child Development Center (a LEND/MCH/AUCD program), IN*Source, IPIN (Indiana Parent Information Network), and the Indiana State Department of Education on disability issues in the past and continues to seek to broaden its community collaborations. Students should contact Heather McCabe at hamccabe@iupui.edu to inquire about student opportunities on the topic of disability policy.

Each year, the Center sponsors a conference about Childhood Disabilities in conjunction with the Department of Education and Indiana University School of Medicine- Riley Child Development Center. This conference draws an audience of lawyers, medical providers, social workers, therapists, educators, and parents. The conference always includes a parental perspective of the system being discussed. See the brochure for 2005 program.

The International Human Right to Health. The Public Health Law program is currently exploring ways to enhance recognition of the human right to health as enunciated in several international and regional treaties. As part of this work, the Hall Center for Law and Health has established a database on the "Provisions on Health and Health Care in the Constitutions of the Countries of the World." See Kinney & Clark, Provisions for Health and Health Care in the Constitutions of the Countries of the World, 37 Cornell International Law Journal 285 (2004).