The New Public Health Law

The New Public Health Law is the first textbook to arm lawyers and public health professionals of any background with the tools to fully exploit the potential of law to improve public health. Its transdisciplinary approach breaks down complex legal processes into discrete and understandable stages, making it an indispensable roadmap for the difficult work of crafting, monitoring, and improving public health laws.

The refreshed second edition (Nov. 2022) furthers the transdisciplinary approach of the first edition with key updates to case law and evolving legal changes in response to COVID-19 and worsening health inequities.
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Suitable for courses in public health, law, and social work, this text offers straightforward chapters that move through the life-cycle of public health law practice from the perspective of attorneys and non-attorneys: policy development; implementation; advocacy; enforcement; and monitoring and evaluation. Introductory chapters set out necessary background on the health and legal systems, ethics, and the federal structure of U.S. law, and ensuing chapters outline the legal doctrines essential to public health law at all levels.

Enriched with thought-provoking exercises and written for readers of any background, The New Public Health Law sets a new and richly accessible standard for understanding and leveraging policy to further the public good.

Meet the Authors

Scott Burris, JD
Professor and Director, Center for Public Health Law Research, Temple University Beasley School of Law

Scott Burris is Professor of Law and Public Health at Temple University, where he directs the Center for Public Health Law Research. His work focuses on how law influences public health, and what interventions can make laws and law enforcement practices healthier in their effects. He is the author of over 200 books, book chapters, articles and reports on issues including urban health, HIV/AIDS, research ethics, and the health effects of criminal law.  His work has been supported by organizations including the Open Society Institute, the National Institutes of Health, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the UK Department for International Development, and the CDC.  Professor Burris has served as a consultant to numerous U.S. and international organizations including WHO, UNODC and UNDP.  He is a founder of Legal Science, LLC, a private company dedicated to the social mission of improving access to legal information and the supporting the practice of policy surveillance. He has been a visiting scholar at RegNet at the Australian National University, and a Fulbright Fellow at the University of Cape Town Law School. In 2014, he was the recipient of the American Public Health Law Association Health Law Section Lifetime Achievement Award.  Professor Burris is a graduate of Washington University in St. Louis (A.B.) and Yale Law School (J.D.).

Micah Berman, JD
Associate Professor of Public Health and Law, The Ohio State University

Professor Micah Berman holds a joint appointment with The Ohio State University Moritz College of Law and the College of Public Health. His scholarship examines the intersection between public health research and legal doctrine, with a focus on the First Amendment, preemption, and tobacco policy. He has published more than 80 articles in leading law review and public health journals, including the Georgetown Law Journal, the Boston College Law Review, and the American Journal of Public Health. Prior to joining Ohio State, Professor Berman was a member of the faculty at New England Law | Boston, where he established and directed the Center for Public Health and Tobacco Policy. Under his leadership, the Center developed innovative model ordinances and provided policy support to state and local public health programs. Previously, he taught at Capital University Law School and directed the Ohio Tobacco Public Policy Center. Professor Berman has also been engaged in public health policy development at the federal level. He has served as an advisor to the Food and Drug Administration’s Center for Tobacco Products and as a member of the National Institutes of Health’s Council of Public Representatives. Before entering academia, Professor Berman was a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice’s Antitrust Division and an associate with the law firm Stinson Morrison Hecker LLP (now Stinson Leonard Street LLP).  He received his JD with honors from Stanford Law School, where he was managing editor of the ​Stanford Law Review.

Matthew Penn, JD, MLIS
Director, Office of Public Health Law Services, US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

As director of the Office of Public Health Law Services within CDC’s Center for State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support (proposed), Matthew Penn, JD, MLIS, provides critical legal expertise and leadership to advance public health practice through law. In this role, Mr. Penn leads a team of public health advisors and analysts in supporting practitioners and policy makers at the state, tribal, local, and territorial levels through the development of practical, law-centered tools and legal preparedness to address public health priorities. Prior to joining CDC, Mr. Penn served 9 years as a staff attorney for the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control. In this position, he provided in-house counsel and litigation services on legal issues in the areas of health services delivery, public health law, HIPAA, environmental health, disease control, public health and bioterrorism preparedness, and health regulation. From August 2001 to May 2007, Mr. Penn served as a legal writing instructor at the University of South Carolina Law School. After law school and the bar exam, he worked as a staff attorney with the South Carolina Supreme Court, which allowed him to study how the law directly interacts with people’s lives and how cases work their way through the court system. During law school, Mr. Penn clerked for the Office of General Counsel at the University of South Carolina and interned with the South Carolina Environmental Law Project. He credits these two experiences with his decision to dedicate his legal career to public service. Mr. Penn earned his undergraduate degree in English from the University of Georgia and his master’s degree in library and information science and doctor of jurisprudence from the University of South Carolina.

Tara Ramanathan Holiday, JD, MPH
Public Health Analyst, Office of State, Tribal, Local, and Territorial Support, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

Tara Ramanathan Holiday specializes in state and local government law related to emerging public health issues, including healthcare quality, health system transformation, and health information and data sharing. She has 15 years of public health experience in local, state, federal, and international governmental and non-governmental organizations, most recently serving as the Team Lead for Research and Translation and a Public Health Analyst with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Public Health Law Program. In that role, she teaches and oversees lawyers and public health practitioners at CDC and other levels of government on the use of legal epidemiology to examine the impact that laws and policies have on health outcomes. Ms. Ramanathan Holiday is a licensed member of the State Bar of California. She received her J.D. from Emory University School of Law, M.P.H. from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and B.A. from Wellesley College. She began her civil service career as a Peace Corps Volunteer supporting rural health programs and community development in Senegal, West Africa. She maintains her interest in supporting vulnerable populations through volunteering with health-related legal aid in Atlanta.