The Importance of Public Health Law for the Public Health Workforce

Understanding public health law is critical to addressing today’s public health issues, yet many education and training programs for public health practitioners — including master of public health (MPH) programs — do not prepare practitioners to enter the workforce with an adequate understanding of how the law can be used to improve or hinder the public’s health.

To address this knowledge gap, ChangeLab Solutions has partnered with the Public Health Law Program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to investigate how academic programs can better train the next generation of public health practitioners to understand the connection between law and health equity. Our report Public Health Law Training for Future Public Health Practitioners summarizes the key findings and recommendations from our research.

We’ve also produced a video question-and-answer session with four professionals in the field, who describe their experiences with using public health law in their work, including how law is an essential tool for protecting the public’s health and promoting health equity.

6/18/2024