About the lecture:
Law is a neglected but powerful tool to regulate hazardous products, strengthen health systems, encourage healthier and safer behaviors, and ensure equitable, participatory, and accountable governance. In short, law is good for health and for justice. Law builds public health infrastructure. It establishes a mission for public health agencies, defining their functions, granting them flexible powers, while safeguarding rights and freedoms. It advances the right to health by creating the conditions in which people can be healthy. Most importantly, law can safeguard vulnerable and marginalized populations, reducing gapping socioeconomic disparities in health and longevity.
In the 2017 WYNG-Hatton Lecture, Professor Gostin demonstrates the value of law in preventing major health hazards, including fast-moving infectious diseases, debilitating injuries, and the growing burden of noncommunicable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and respiratory disease.
Speakers:
Professor Lawrence O. Gostin
University Professor (Georgetown’s highest academic rank), Founding O’Neill Chair in Global Health Law; and Director, World Health Organization Collaborating Center on National and Global Health Law, Georgetown University, Washington, DC, USA
Video:
Not available
