The publication in 1999 of To Err is Human unleashed the potential for systems of regulatory governance to improve the safety and quality of health care services for patients (Institute of Medicine, 2000). In addition, it marked a point at which patients, health care professionals and health...

Research over the past three decades has shown convincingly that population health is shaped powerfully by the contexts in which people live, learn, work, and play - also called social determinants of health or fundamental social causes of disease. The World Health Organization, the Centers for...

Globalization has led to an appreciation of a global politics beyond the control of nation-states and the traditional system of international relations. Global politics is characterized by a pluralization of governance mediated by a constant effort to establish shared norms of global public...

It has become a commonplace to claim that HIV has been treated "differently" than other disease by health policy makers. This claim - the "exceptionalism thesis" - is, I argue here, fundamentally ahistorical, overlooking that virtually all major public health threats have inspired political...

Context: For three decades, experts have been stressing the importance of law to the effective operation of public health systems. Most recently, the Institute of Medicine in a 2011 report recommended a review of state and local public health laws to ensure appropriate authority for public...

Law plays essential roles in public health. Law defines health officials' jurisdiction, and specifies how they exercise their authority. It is a tool of public health work used to establish norms for healthy behavior. Policymakers use the law's language of rights, duties and justice in the most...