HELEN News

Health Justice: Engaging Critical Perspectives in Health Law & Policy

The Health Law and Policy Program at American University Washington College of Law, in partnership with ChangeLab Solutions, the St. Louis University Institute for Healing Justice and Equity, and the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine, is pleased to present Health Justice: Engaging Critical Perspectives in Health Law and Policy. This initiative brings together scholars and advocates to discuss strategies for securing distributive justice, valuing human dignity, and empowering communities to address the structural and social determinants of health. 

The Health Justice: Engaging Critical Perspectives Initiative encompasses a series of virtual workshops in summer 2020, a virtual conference on October 2, 2020, and an accompanying symposium issue to be published in the Journal of Law, Medicine & Ethics in 2022.

The Health Justice: Engaging Critical Perspectives Initiative fosters theory, practice, and action on health justice. Our focus is on applying critical perspectives—including critical race theory, Lat Crit, ClassCrit, black feminist theory, feminist legal theory, queer theory, critical disability studies, and more—to the most pressing challenges in health law and policy. We have a big-tent vision of health law and policy, encompassing public health, the social determinants of health, health care, bioethics, and global health.

We aim to encourage health law and policy scholars, advocates, workers, and justice movement activists to engage more deeply with critical perspectives. We also hope to encourage scholars, advocates, workers, and activists from various critical perspectives who have not previously engaged in the health law and policy sphere to do so as part of this project.

The Health Justice: Engaging Critical Perspectives in Health Law and Policy Initiative steering committee includes Emily Benfer, Brian C. Castrucci, Brietta Clark, Sarah de Guia, Gregg Gonsalves, Angela Harris, Nan Hunter, Dayna Bowen Matthew, Seema Mohapatra, Jamila Taylor, Lindsay Wiley, and Ruqaiijah Yearby.

Learn more: https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/health/events/healthjustice2020/https://www.wcl.american.edu/impact/initiatives-programs/health/events/healthjustice2020/