How Does the Law, Past & Present, Affect Health Equity? Part 1 of Exploring the Social Determinants of Health, Health Equity & the Law

Everything that a health department does — whether acting as an employer, regulator, data collector, service provider, educator, or funder — should be geared to advancing health equity. To promote health equity, it is important to first understand how laws drive the structural discrimination that creates and reinforces health inequities. Practitioners can then use this knowledge to reform public health laws and policies that have contributed to multigenerational harm.

This free training — brought to you by ChangeLab Solutions and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public Health Law Program — is the first in a two-part series that discusses how public health laws affect social determinants of health and health equity. After you complete this training, we encourage you to watch Part 2, which describes actions that health departments can take to close inequitable gaps in health outcomes and how health departments can use the tools of law and policy to address the social determinants of health and advance health equity.

This two-part series is the foundation for all Public Health Law Academy trainings, including our module Public Health Law: Past and Present, which illustrates some of the important ways that public health law can positively affect health. These trainings also focus on how public health laws have harmed communities and explore how public health laws and policies can be used to remedy those harms and improve health equity. We encourage you to engage with this material and think about where in your practice you can use the tools of law and policy to promote health equity.

This training will . . .

• Define key concepts related to health equity and social determinants of health
• Explain how structural racism is rooted in our country’s legal legacy and history
• Examine how laws, both past and present, contribute to health inequities
• Explore how inequities can be repaired

If you are a TRAIN user, please register for this course through TRAIN. To learn more about earning the Public Health Law Academy certificate of completion, see the complete training plan.

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